


the only one who really knew me at all

by ShowMeAHero



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: (OC Cheating), Almost Kiss, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Big Dick Richie Tozier, Cheating, Coming Out, Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Fix-It, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Gay Eddie Kaspbrak, Gay Richie Tozier, Hurt/Comfort, Jealousy, Love Confessions, M/M, Misunderstandings, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Pining, Post-Canon, Post-Canon Fix-It, Rejection, Sexual Tension, Slow Burn, Stanley Uris Lives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:22:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 20,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22310227
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShowMeAHero/pseuds/ShowMeAHero
Summary: “What’d you mean?” Eddie asks, dropping his voice only slightly lower. Richie’s eyes flick over his face, dropping to his lips before darting back up to meet his eyes again.“I want you to be happy,” Richie says, almost a whisper. Eddie nods, tipping his chin up a little more. Richie smiles, just a bit, and Eddie’s heart skips in his chest. “Are you happy, Eds?”“I could be a little happier,” Eddie tells him honestly.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough/Mike Hanlon, Eddie Kaspbrak/Myra Kaspbrak (One-sided), Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Patricia Blum Uris/Stanley Uris, Richie Tozier/Original Male Character(s)
Comments: 46
Kudos: 602





	1. the chance i've gotta take

**Author's Note:**

  * For [starlitrain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starlitrain/gifts).



> For [rehtea](https://rehtea.tumblr.com/) on Tumblr!
> 
> Title taken from ["Against All Odds (Take A Look At Me Now)"](https://open.spotify.com/track/63CHa6rmamv9OsehkRD8oz?si=6kdzGhYSQK6byKgTRm4A3g) by Phil Collins.

Richie absolutely refuses to leave Eddie in the sewers.

When Bill tries to pull Richie back, Richie snaps, “Are you fucking  _ insane?  _ You want me to leave  _ Eddie  _ down here?  _ Eddie?”  _ Bill just looks down at Eddie’s body, when he says that, but then he’s ducking down and helping, too, pulling Eddie’s arm over his shoulders, and Stan sprints over to get his arms under Eddie’s back.

It takes the three of them to get Eddie out of the sewers and the house on Neibolt Street before it collapses in on itself, but they manage it. Richie’s limping himself, and his head feels like it’s splintering to pieces, but he still drags Eddie into his car and drives him to the hospital himself before anyone can stop him. If he passes out in the emergency room, that’s his business.

He wakes up and Mike is the one next to him, asleep in a hospital chair, his legs kicked up on Richie’s bed, crossed at the ankles. Richie reaches out and jostles him lightly; Mike inhales sharply, then yawns, opening one eye to squint at him.

“Look at you, sleepyhead,” Mike comments, once he realizes what he’s looking at. Richie smiles at him, stretching for him, and Mike goes, sitting on the edge of the bed and pulling Richie into a hug. It’s for the best, that Mike’s the one with him; he’s the only one who remembered Richie even existed in the last twenty-odd years, so he’s the only one who remembers how tactile and clingy he is.

“Is everyone okay?” Richie asks. Mike rubs his back in slow circles. “Mi—”

“Everyone’s alive,” Mike tells him. “Eddie’s pretty banged up, but he’s going to be okay. You saved his life, Rich.”

“I drove recklessly and passed out,” Richie replies dryly. Mike huffs a laugh, pulling back and brushing Richie’s hair back from his face with his fingers. He’s not sure when Mike got taller than him, but he’ll take it right now for the feeling of one of his best friends enveloping him in a hug like this. “He’s probably going to be angrier that I risked crashing than happy that I got him here at all.”

“I think you’ll be surprised,” Mike says. Richie starts to sit up, but Mike gently pushes him back down, saying, “He’s asleep right now, you can see him later.”

“Where’s everyone else?” Richie asks. Mike gets back up off the bed, returning to his chair. Richie wants to ask him to stay and keep hugging him, but he reminds himself that he’s forty years old and doesn’t ask. It’s just because nobody’s hugged him in so long, he figures. He just wants to feel loved a little longer.

“Bill’s back at— uhh, home, my place,” Mike says, blushing so unexpectedly hard that Richie reaches out and shoves at his leg. Mike bats him away.

“What’s  _ that  _ about, Mikey?” Richie asks. Mike waves him off, but Richie insists,  _ “No,  _ no, what, you got a crush on Big Bill?”

Richie expects Mike to roll his eyes, or something, but instead he looks at Richie with a flushed sincerity, hesitating before he says, “Rich, I— I’ve lived in Derry a long time.”

“And that bums me out now more than ever, Michael,” Richie says. Mike smiles, but he doesn’t laugh; Richie falls quiet and waits for him to continue, then.

“It’s not really an open-minded place,” Mike explains. “But I’ve also done— done a lot of reading, I guess. And I’ve spent a lot of time on my own to think about things, and I think— I think that I think it doesn’t really matter who you love. It just matters that you  _ do  _ love, and that you  _ are  _ loved, right? Even in places like Derry.” Mike scoffs a little, then says, “Well,  _ especially  _ in places like Derry.”

Richie’s a little rattled, having someone who knows him like Mike knows him saying words like  _ it doesn’t really matter who you love  _ directly into his face. He’d spent weeks and months and  _ years  _ wanting to hear one of the Losers say that to him when he was a kid. That boy who had a crush on Bill in preschool and fell in love with Eddie by first grade, that boy who was so terrified of the way he felt about other boys that the only time he couldn’t speak was when other people brought it up,  _ that boy— He _ needed to hear all of that.

“Mike,” Richie says, a little choked. Mike reaches out and puts his hand over Richie’s, interlocking their fingers on the stiff mattress of the hospital bed. He squeezes Richie’s hand and smiles at him. Richie wants to ask if Mike’s gay, or if he knows something about Richie that Richie has told only a handful of people, or if Mike is  _ okay,  _ but what comes out is, “For the love of  _ fuck,  _ tell me you’re not gonna stay in Derry.”

Mike laughs. “No, I don’t think so. Sandy can— Oh, Sandy, she’s my assistant librarian, she’s great, I think you’d love her— But she can definitely take over for me.”

“Done with Derry?” Richie asks. Mike claps his hand and releases him, leaning back in his chair and kicking his feet up on the edge of Richie’s bed again. Richie almost reaches out to wrap his hand around Mike’s ankle, like he would’ve when they were kids, but he doesn’t. He’s not sure what forty-year-old Mike is okay with Richie doing.

_ “Very  _ done with Derry,” Mike agrees.

“Bill gonna go with you?” Richie asks. Mike hums a little, tipping his head back and closing his eyes. He clasps his hands across his abdomen. “Sorry, I—”

“No, no,” Mike replies. He sighs, head still tilted backwards, and says, “Bill’s married. He— I don’t think it’s my place to say anything, in light of that.”

“You don’t think it’s your place to tell him you love him?” Richie asks without thinking. Mike’s eyes snap open and he looks down at Richie, alarmed; the two of them just stare at each other for a moment. “I— I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, no, it’s— No, it’s fine,” Mike cuts him off. He sits up, putting his feet firmly on the ground and kneading at his temples for a moment before he says, “Jesus, Rich. You always go right for the throat, you know that? Haven’t changed a bit.”

“You’d be surprised,” Richie says back, but Mike just shakes his head.

“I think  _ you’d  _ be surprised,” he replies. He rubs at the back of his head and says, “Yeah, I don’t know. I haven’t really known Bill in years, and he’s only just remembered me. I definitely— I  _ used  _ to have a thing for him, and I’ve missed him. I’ve missed all of you.”

“I thought you were going to kiss him in the sewers,” Richie says. Mike looks at him expectantly, but it’s not a joke. It’s the most honest Richie’s been in a long time. He remembers being in the sewer and seeing Bill and Mike grab each other, pushing their foreheads together and just clinging to one another. It had made his chest  _ hurt,  _ thinking Bill and Mike could have that, that  _ he  _ could’ve had that, and then he’d remembered Eddie and run back to find him unconscious, and the almost-kiss had vanished from his mind.

“Did you, now?” Mike asks. It sounds rhetorical, as he rubs at the back of his head. “I thought so, too. Maybe if things had gone differently. But he  _ is  _ married, Richie, and there’s nothing I can do about that.”

“You can be honest with him,” Richie says. “Let him make the decision with you instead of making it for him.” Mike just looks him over, scrutinizing him, so Richie hurriedly says, “It’s what I’d want, anyways.”

Mike hums a little again, folding his arms across his chest as he looks Richie over. Richie can’t help but fidget slightly, rubbing at the side of his head where it hurts the worst. His glasses have a spider web of cracks along one entire lens, but at least they’re still in one piece.

“Is that what you want?” Mike finally asks.

“What?” Richie asks. “To be told you’re in love with me? It wouldn’t be the worst news, Mikey, I won’t lie, you’re a handsome guy.”

Mike smiles at him again and says, “Richie, can I tell you something?”

“Of course,” Richie answers, without hesitation. “Anything, Mike, you know that.”

There’s a pause. Mike chews on his bottom lip, looking down at the IV in the back of Richie’s hand with a hard sort of concentration, but then he looks up again and says, “I’m gay.”

Richie stares at him, then laughs a little and says, “Yeah, Mi— You know what, Mike? Yeah. Yeah, me, too.”

Mike laughs, too, getting up to pull Richie into another hug, perching on the edge of his bed and rocking him a little as Richie cries into his chest. It’s only a minute or two before Mike starts crying, too, and that’s how Stan finds him, when he knocks on the door to Richie’s hospital room and pokes his head in.

“Please tell me nobody died,” Stan says. It’d be a joke, if it wasn’t for how very realistically the answer could be  _ actually, somebody did. _

Mike sits up and says, “Everybody’s fine,” at the same time Richie tearfully says, “I’m sorry, I’m gay,” and Stan just starts to laugh.

“Only you, Rich,” Stan tells him. He goes to Richie’s other side and rubs his back, lets Richie cling to him and sob. Mike comes out to him, too, and Stan claps him on the back before he says, “Eddie’s up. He wants to see you both.”

Richie’s chest hurts, and he makes the mistake of verbalizing that. He calls it a  _ mistake  _ because Stan gets the nurse and Mike backs off while she gives him pain medication and walks through his vitals, all while Richie just wants to get up and run to Eddie.

He’s not allowed to run at all, but he is allowed a slow walk with Mike supporting him as his head trauma knocks him off balance every few steps, overwhelming him with vertigo. Eddie’s not really all that far away, thank fuck, and when Richie gets to his room, he’s overwhelmed nearly to tears to see Eddie sitting up, bandages wrapped around his torso as he animatedly argues with Bev. He turns when Richie pushes through the door, though, and he smiles, and the conversation he’d just had with Mike almost bowls him over.

“Can I talk to Eddie for a second?” Richie finds himself asking, before he can think twice about what he’s about to do. All he knows is he’s spent enough time being alone, and he doesn’t want to waste any more. Bev nods and gets up without hesitation, kissing Eddie on the forehead before stopping next to Richie.

“I’m so glad we’re all okay,” Bev tells him. When her eyes flick up to look into his, she’s tearing up, so he wraps his arms around her and buries his face in her hair.

“I am, too,” Richie says. She hugs him a little too tight, but Richie buries the flinch so he can hold her a while longer.

“Remember to be honest,” Mike tells him quietly on his other side. Richie turns slightly to see him as Mike says, “Let him make the decision with you. Don’t make it for him.”

“Oh, you ass,” Richie murmurs, smiling slightly. Mike hugs Richie, too, and they both release him at the same time, Mike patting his shoulder.

“I’ll do it if you will,” Mike says, which Richie thinks is tremendously unfair, because Mike made an entire  _ confession  _ and Richie hadn’t said anything about Eddie at all.

“Come sit down, Rich, you look like you’re gonna pass out,” Eddie scolds him. Richie laughs, dragging his stupid IV with him to sit on the edge of Eddie’s bed. Eddie sits up, leaning back into his flat pillows as he says, “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’re going to be sick. You’re not actually, are you? Because I—”

“I’m so glad you’re alright, really, but you’re gonna puncture a lung talking that fast,” Richie comments. Eddie huffs, but he’s smiling when Richie glances up at him. “I mean it. I’m so glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks to you, Mike said,” Eddie tells him. Richie rolls his eyes, whistling one low note. “Thank you, Richie.”

“Don’t thank me, Eds, fuck, it’s your life, what was I gonna do?” Richie asks. “Just let you die?”

“Maybe,” Eddie replies. “I was already pretty much dead anyways—”

Richie cuts him off by reaching out and putting his fingers to Eddie’s throat, feeling his pulse. It jumps under Richie’s hand, racing. Richie raises an eyebrow at him as he says, “Don’t feel dead to me, Spaghetti Man.”

“Shut up,” Eddie grumbles. He looks out the window for a moment, then glances sidelong at Richie and says, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why’d you do it?” Eddie clarifies. Richie looks down at him like he’d grown two heads, because what a  _ stupid  _ fucking question.

“Oh, sorry, should I have  _ let  _ you die in the clown sewer?” Richie asks. “Was that my bad? Was that some secret wish of yours? Excuse me for—”

“Beep, beep,” Eddie interrupts him. Richie shuts his mouth, and Eddie says, “Why did you make them bring me out, I mean? Bev told me what you did.”

“Why—”

“She felt bad for telling you to leave me,” Eddie answers, before Richie can even ask. He’s overwhelmed instantly, feeling ridiculous for being just as in love with Eddie now as he was all those years ago, but he knows he’s in love. He  _ knows  _ it. Mike said he goes right for the throat; he tries to do it again now.

“Eddie, I need to tell you something,” Richie says. Eddie blanches a little, and he sits up, looking nervous, wiping his hands off on his blankets.

“Calling me  _ Eddie,”  _ Eddie comments with a humorless laugh. “I guess it’s something serious. You’re not dying, right? Or is it—”

“Eds, I just—” Richie cuts him off, then groans in frustration, rubbing at his face with one hand. “Alright, just— Quiet, be quiet for a second. I want to tell you something and I don’t know if you’re gonna want to hear it, but I told Mike he had to do the same thing and I’d be a hypocrite if I didn’t.”

“What’d you tell Mike to do?” Eddie asks. Richie can hear the anxiety bleeding into his voice.

“Not really my place to say,” Richie answers, after a beat of hesitation. He’d hate if Mike told Bill how he feels for Eddie, so he decides to just let Mike cross this bridge when he comes to it. “But I told him something that I— I wanted to tell you. If that’s alright.”

“Yeah, Richie,” Eddie says. “I mean— I know we haven’t seen each other in a while, but I still love you, man. You can tell me anything.”

In spite of everything, Eddie’s still  _ Eddie,  _ and that more than anything else gives Richie the courage to say, “Eds, I’m gay.”

Eddie stares at him, his face unresponsive as he sorts through his emotions before he lands on a smile and reaches out to clasp Richie by the upper arm. “Thanks for telling me. I know that probably wasn’t easy.”

Richie nods, waiting for a beat. Eddie doesn’t say anything more, so he just inhales and says, “And, uhh— One other thing.”

“Shoot,” Eddie tells him.

“I love you,” Richie says.

“I love you, too,” Eddie says, without hesitation. “What is it?”

Richie looks at him. Eddie just looks back, expectant, waiting. When Richie doesn’t speak, Eddie’s brow furrows slightly. Richie motions with his hand, and Eddie’s whole expression clears as he finally understands, and then his face pales dramatically quickly. It’s so fast that Richie’s slightly concerned for him.

“You alright, Eddie?” Richie asks. His own heart is pounding in his chest, racing faster and faster with every second Eddie doesn’t respond. Eddie just keeps staring at him for a long while before he shifts, staring  _ past  _ him instead. “Uh. E—Eds? Come on, man,” he laughs, but it’s forced even to his own ears, so he just says, “Y—You’re sort of freaking me out, here—”

“Rich— Richie, I— I can’t, I can’t do— I,” Eddie stammers out, then stops, looking at Richie with frantic eyes. His face is starting to flush with color again, spots of bright red splotched high on his cheeks as he dissolves into obvious panic. “I’m marr— Richie, I’m  _ married.” _

Richie’s heart jumps into his throat, and he nods uncontrollably, looking out the window and saying, “No, yeah, I— I just—”

“I’m  _ straight,  _ Richie,” Eddie tells him, and Richie gets up off the bed, backing up a couple of steps. “No, I didn’t mean—”

“I’m so sorry,” Richie says. He feels like he’s thirteen again, except a thousand times worse, because in the fantasies he’d had when he was thirteen, he’d made his confession and Eddie had hugged him and kissed him and asked him if they could be together forever. They’d been his wildest fantasies, sure, but he could have wild fantasies when he kept his secret to himself.

Now, his secret’s out, and Eddie  _ knows,  _ and— worst of all— he fucking doesn’t  _ care.  _ He’s married and straight and Richie’s read the entire thing completely wrong, because he’d thought— At the Townhouse, and in the sewers, too, maybe, he’d  _ thought— _

But it doesn’t matter what he’d thought, because Eddie’s starting to hyperventilate and Richie’s starting to cry and there’s not much either of them can do to help the other as Richie sucks in a shuddering breath.

“Eds— Eddie, uhh, I’m— I’m  _ so  _ sorry,” Richie chokes out, his voice breaking on the  _ so,  _ and he yanks Eddie’s hospital room door open to hurl himself into the hallway. Mike catches him by the shoulders, looking concerned as he ducks down to look into Richie’s face.

“Hey, big guy, what happened?” Mike asks. Richie shakes his head just as he remembers the look on Eddie’s face again, and then Mike’s yanking him to the side, shoving his head over a wastebasket seconds before Richie’s vomiting into it.

“He didn’t—” Richie manages to get out before he starts crying in earnest. Mike pulls a pack of tissues out of his jacket pocket and cleans off Richie’s face himself, patting under his eyes before he pulls him into a hug.

“It’s okay,” Mike tells him. Richie can’t get a good grip on him at this angle, all twisted around and tangled up in his IV, but he clings to him anyways, around the corner from Eddie’s room in the hospital hallway, forty years old and sobbing on the floor.

* * *

Mike doesn’t tell anyone about Richie’s explosive display of emotion, and Eddie doesn’t tell anyone about Richie’s confession, and so Richie follows their lead and pretends everything is fine. No, he sure  _ didn’t _ confess his love for his straight, married childhood best friend and immediately get rejected; that probably happened to some other fucking loser who thought he had half a shot with someone like Eddie Kaspbrak.

Richie stays at Eddie’s side through his recovery in spite of his confession, because he can’t stand to be away from him for longer than a day, and Eddie keeps asking for him, too. His wife comes up, after a couple of days, but she’s stony and angry and she never looks in Richie’s direction. Richie wonders what Eddie’s told her, if anything, but he doesn’t think he’d be allowed to see Eddie at all if she actually knew. He believes this just might be her natural response to Richie’s existence as a whole, which is fair, he thinks.

When Eddie’s discharged, there’s no reason for anyone to stay in Derry anymore. Richie watches Eddie book himself and Myra tickets back to New York on his phone. When Eddie lifts his head to look over, Richie glances away before he can get caught, looking down at his own phone to book his flight back to Los Angeles.

They leave the next day. Eddie hugs Richie fleetingly before pulling back to follow Myra to their gate, and Richie feels  _ alone,  _ a cold and empty bone-deep  _ loneliness  _ slithering through his body.

He gets on the plane anyways. He leaves Derry behind.

Things in L.A. are worse before they’re better, but they do get better. He makes apologies and statements for leaving three jokes into his last show before disappearing off the face of the Earth. He gets— or, rather, his lawyer Geraldine gets— the charges against him for Bowers’ death dropped under the circumstances. He starts writing a new show, and he’s got another tour scheduled, and the Losers have a group chat going to keep up with each other, and everything’s great.

Well. Everything  _ would  _ be great. It  _ could  _ be great, but Eddie’s kind of a closed book, now. He responds in their group chat, and he smiles through their group video calls, but he’s not really forthcoming with any of them, and  _ especially  _ not with Richie. Bev accidentally lets it slip one day that her private messages with Eddie were a lot less stilted than his messages in their group chat.

“I’m sure he’s that way with you, too,” Bev had said, and Richie had laughed, because every time he tries to message Eddie separately, he gets the same stiff responses and one-word answers. Now he knows it’s personal, and now it fucking  _ hurts,  _ and he starts to think he made an even bigger mistake than he’d originally believed, because he’s ruined the entire  _ group  _ with his stupid fucking confession, now.

“You haven’t ruined anything,” Mike tells him over speakerphone as Richie digs through his takeout boxes. He  _ can  _ cook — he’s more than capable, and sometimes people even tell him he’s good at it — but he hasn’t really wanted to, lately. Before he’d gone back to Derry, he’d thought he’d always been alone; it sucked, but it’d been the status quo. Now that he’s got the Losers back, he’s realized he doesn’t  _ have  _ to be alone, and it makes his empty apartment and embarrassingly desolate social life feel all the lonelier for it.

“I’ve definitely ruined everything,” Richie insists. He spoons a shitload of rice onto his plate and says, “He barely talks to me, Mike. He talks to  _ Patty  _ more than he talks to me.  _ Patty.” _

“He just doesn’t know how to process it,” Mike explains. He’s said this before, but Richie’s not sure how much he believes it. “He’s still figuring everything out, Richie. Give him space, give him time— He’ll come around.”

“Easy for you to say, Casanova,” Richie comments. He hears Mike laugh softly, and it makes his chest hurt. Mike had kept up his end of the deal and confessed his feelings to Bill. Bill, who was married to a woman; Bill, who had forgotten Mike even existed; Bill, who, for all intents and purposes, should have responded the same way Eddie had responded.

Instead, he had asked Mike if he could have a day to think things over. After that day, he had asked Audra for a divorce and asked Mike if he wanted to maybe come back to California with him and they had kissed and everything had been hunky-dory, straight out of a romantic comedy.

“You still on for lunch tomorrow?” Mike asks. Richie makes a non-committal sound.  _ “Rich.” _

“I don’t  _ want  _ to meet anyone new,” Richie whines. “People suck. I just wanna hang out with you and Bill.”

“There are things Bill and I do together that you’re not invited to,” Mike reminds him. Richie groans again.

“I  _ could  _ be invited, you just won’t invite me,” Richie says. Mike laughs again. “What’s his name again? Arnold?”

“Arnie,” Mike corrects. Richie sighs. “He’s really nice.”

“Oh, yeah, your best friend Arnie,” Richie says. “Where’d you meet again?”

“Um… Well, in line at Starbucks two days ago,” Mike replies, after a sheepish moment of silence. Richie knows, but he just wanted to remind Mike of that fact.  _ “But,  _ I think you’ll like him.”

_ “I  _ think I’m making a huge mistake,” Richie says. He pokes at his rice now, then sighs again. “Mike, am I making a mistake?”

“The only real mistake would be not living the way you want to live,” Mike answers carefully. Richie drops his face into his hand and rubs at his temples underneath his glasses. “I think you should get back out there. Meet someone, go on dates. Let someone in, Rich. It’ll be good for you.”

Richie highly doubts that, but he  _ is  _ lonely. Going on one blind date that Mike and Bill are also on won’t kill him, even if it makes the sting of Eddie rejecting him hurt all over again, now that he’s actively forced to start moving on. Because Eddie doesn’t want him. Because Eddie—

“Richie?” Mike asks. Richie drops his fork and drops his hands on his table.

“I’ll be there,” Richie says. “Tell Arnie to buckle up, Mike. You’re gonna meet Date Rich.”

“I shudder to think,” Mike replies. There’s a soft sound, and then distant murmuring; after a moment, Mike says, “Bill says hi.”

“Tell him I said,  _ ‘hey there, B-B-B-Billy,’”  _ Richie says.

“No,” Mike says, over the sound of Bill laughing on the other end as he hears Richie’s loud voice through the phone anyways. “Tomorrow, Rich. Twelve-thirty.  _ Please  _ be there. It’ll be really good for you.”

“Listen to him,” Bill says, presumably over Mike’s shoulder. The back of Richie’s nose burns, and he sniffles. It just makes the backs of his eyes prickle, and then one tear slips out, and he feels like such a dipshit. “Hey. Hey, R-R-Richie—”

“Twelve-thirty,” Richie cuts him off, wiping at his face with the heel of his hand. “Yup, sounds good. See ya then, squares.”

Richie hangs up, exhaling harshly once his phone is off. He shoves his plate aside on the table and drops his face into his cupped hands, fighting back the shuddering breaths threatening to turn into active crying all over again. It’s been a few weeks and it’s still too fucking much, sometimes. Getting Eddie back just to fuck up so collossally that Eddie doesn’t even want to talk to him feels like the ultimate karmic reward for being himself, and it  _ hurts. _

He shoves the pain and pity aside, abandoning his dinner in favor of turning on the television and flipping aimlessly through streaming services until he finds a cheesy horror movie he somehow hasn’t seen before. He watches it until he falls asleep, trying and failing not to think of Eddie the entire time.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> See end notes on this chapter for spoilers that explain the cheating tag, if you need to know why it's there!

Eddie knows he’s been sort of a ghost lately to the Losers, but, in all fairness, he’s been something of a ghost everywhere, lately. Once he was discharged from the hospital and sent to physical therapy, he started spending the time he’d be at the physical therapist thinking on— everything. There was a lot to fucking think about, after all, with the killer clown and the six long-lost best friends and the love confession from one of the aforementioned best friends, arguably the best  _ of  _ the best friends.

When his physical therapy rounds end, Eddie just starts going to the gym instead. He gets himself a regular therapist that he sees twice a week, and he sticks to his gym routine nearly every single day, and he starts getting some control over his own life. Just choosing little things like what he does in the morning (waking up, going out to the gym by himself, getting time away from the house) or where he goes in the evenings (therapy, sometimes; the movies or restaurants by himself, other times) makes a world of difference.

One thing that doesn’t improve afterwards is the tension between him and Myra. She’d already been incensed with him for leaving for Derry without an explanation, and she’d been even angrier to get called up  _ to  _ Derry for a traumatic wound that Eddie couldn’t quite explain getting. She’s cold to him, even as she fusses over him, as if everything that’s gone wrong in their lives is somehow all his fault, and it makes his skin crawl.

He’s always just let Myra do whatever she wanted, say whatever he wanted. It’s just been easier that way. Now, he’s starting to realize that’s not— that that’s not  _ healthy,  _ that he should have wants and he should be able to  _ express  _ those wants. Every time he tries, though —  _ exposure therapy,  _ his therapist calls it — Myra dismisses him. He tries to explain why he’s trying to verbalize his opinions more often, and she agrees that it’s a good idea; then, though, every time he tries it again, she shuts him down, telling him he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Like  _ she  _ knows better than  _ he  _ does how to take care of  _ him. _

It reminds him one night, with a jolt, of his mother, and he barely makes it to his kitchen sink before he vomits neatly down the drain. He coughs, then leans his face against the faucet. Running the water just for the distracting sound of it, Eddie realizes he’s forty fucking years old and he’s letting a carbon copy of his mother continue dictating his life.

The second the can of worms is open, Eddie’s spiraling, until the thought  _ did I marry her because she’s my mother?  _ hits him, and then he’s texting his therapist with one hand as he tugs his jacket on with the other. He goes out onto his and Myra’s balcony off their bedroom, letting the cold New York air slap him in the face until he can breathe again.

He texts Bev, too, and she calls. He toys with the idea of not answering, because he doesn’t really want to talk to anyone, but she’ll just keep calling until he answers. She’s just worried, he reminds himself; she cares about him. She’s one of the only people who actually does, he’s realizing. The Losers might be the only ones who like him for him, and not for someone to take care of or someone to control or— or someone to use. He can just be Eddie.

He’s not entirely sure who Eddie  _ is, _ but he thinks he’s finding out, and he’s shaking as he answers the phone.

“What happened? Why are you sick?” Bev asks.

“I think I married Myra because she’s my mother,” Eddie tells her. “I think— I think she’s controlling my life. I don’t know what to do.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Bev says quietly. “Do you want to come over here?”

“I can’t,” Eddie tells her. “It’s too late—”

“It’s not too late,” Bev interrupts him urgently. “It’s  _ not,  _ you’ll—”

“I meant at night,” Eddie cuts her off.

“Oh,” she replies. She huffs a dry laugh, then says, “Eddie— It’s okay. I get it. I really get it.”

“I know you do,” Eddie says quietly. He sits down with his back against the closed door to the balcony, feeling the night wind whip against his face as he draws his legs up and leans his cheek against them. “Bev, what do I do?”

“Do you want a divorce?” Bev asks.

“I don’t know,” he answers.

“I’m gonna ask again,” Bev says, “and I want you to think about the answer first, okay? Take all the time you need.”

Eddie huffs a little, but he nods. After a beat, he says, “Oh— Yeah, go ahead. Fine.”

“Do you want a divorce, Eddie?” Bev asks again. Eddie watches a flashing yellow streetlight down the road as he actually considers the question. He thinks about his life with Myra and how much  _ freer  _ he feels when he’s not with her. The moments he gets to spend out from under her thumb are the best parts of his days. She wants to control him, but he doesn’t want to be controlled anymore.

She’s his mother. She’s his  _ mother,  _ telling him he’s sick and making him stay home and isolating him from the rest of the world. No man is an island, but it doesn’t take much to turn Eddie Kaspbrak into one, apparently.

He’d never dated anyone before Myra. It had just been her, and he hadn’t known what else to do, and she’d taken him to pick out the ring he proposed to her with, and she’d planned their wedding, and now—  _ Now,  _ here they are, forty years old and Eddie doesn’t even want to live with her, let alone be married to her.

Briefly, he considers who he  _ would  _ want to be with. He thinks about the women he works with, Claudia and Pam and Rini, but none of them are all that interesting to him. His coworker Allen is more—

Eddie rubs at his face. He’s got a headache starting to pound behind his eyes, but then he thinks back to Richie’s earnest confession, to him sitting on the edge of Eddie’s hospital bed and telling him with such deep sincerity that he loved him, and—

It’s all tainted, because then Eddie had stammered out that he was married and straight, one of which he wasn’t even sure about and the other he’s not sure he’s about to be much longer. Eddie’s heart had twisted, watching Richie struggle to keep it together as the panic had ramped up in his own chest, but he’d thought he just felt bad for  _ Richie. _

Now, he’s realizing, he feels miserable for  _ himself,  _ and he has no idea what, exactly, to do about it. He’s got the therapist and he’s read the articles and he’s talked to gay people on the Internet and he’s starting to think he knows exactly what he’s been suppressing so desperately for years, but he’s not sure what he’s gonna do now about it.

“Bev, I think I fucked up,” Eddie manages to say, so fast it comes out almost as a blur. Luckily, Bev speaks his language.

“We can fix that,” Bev replies. “What’re you doing next weekend?”

Eddie looks at the whiteboard calendar on his refrigerator. Myra has  _ dinner with Ike and Amy  _ on next Saturday night.

“Nothing,” Eddie says. “Why?”

* * *

This is how Eddie ends up on a flight out to Los Angeles with Ben and Bev the following Thursday, on their way to LAX to meet up with Stan and Patty, flying in from Atlanta. Bill and Mike are supposed to pick them up and drive them out to Richie’s new place for his housewarming party, which just so luckily coincided with Eddie’s breakdown and Bev’s insistence that he take a weekend off, no reason, just to California together to see fucking  _ Richie  _ and get the Losers back together again.

Eddie texts Richie, the night before they leave for Los Angeles. He knows he hasn’t been talking to Richie like he’s been talking to the rest of them, and  _ now  _ he knows it’s because he was afraid of looking too closely at the feelings Richie was bringing up in him, and it makes him feel horrible for doing it. He asks Richie how he’s doing, and Richie’s response comes after a beat of typing, the three dots making Eddie’s skin prickle with anxiety until the text came through.

_ I’m good. I’m actually seeing someone,  _ Richie’s text says, and Eddie stares at the text now, on the flight, just like he had the night before when he had received it. He had replied with,  **_wow, great for you, I’m so happy for you, so proud of you,_ ** which had felt weird, and the conversation had tapered off after that. Well— Richie had tried to initiate more of a conversation, actually, but Eddie had been working through his feelings about his wife and his feelings about Richie’s confession and his  _ feelings,  _ period, and he hadn’t known what to say in response to Richie so casually saying he’s  _ seeing someone. _

The idea that Richie might be moving on makes him panic still. He’d had a chance, and he’d let it slip away— Worse, he’d been the one to forcibly  _ shove  _ the chance away, and now, he’s— he’s presumably  _ fucked,  _ because he rejected Richie and then pretty much gave him the cold shoulder for the last couple of months, so he wouldn’t have even had a chance  _ anyways.  _ But now,  _ now,  _ there’s some guy, and— and Richie’s always been better than some  _ guy.  _ Eddie doesn’t even  _ know  _ this guy, but he knows he’s not good enough, because—

“Where’d you go, Eds?” Bev asks, and Eddie snaps out of his own head so forcefully he jolts. Bev laughs, putting her hand over his. “Hey, whoa, space case. Zoned out a little?”

“Yeah, sorry, a little,” Eddie replies. Ben leans over Bev to pat Eddie’s hand over Bev’s— So, really, just holding Bev’s hand over Eddie’s. Eddie wants to roll his eyes, but it just makes his stomach twist. He feels like such a dumb sap about the whole shitfest.

“What’d you tell Myra?” Ben asks, after Eddie’s calmed down a little more and returned to staring at Richie’s text.  _ I’m actually seeing someone. _

“Mm?” Eddie asks.

“Myra,” Ben repeats. “Your wife? What’d you tell her about this weekend?”

“Oh, I said it was a reunion,” Eddie tells him. “She yelled at me, I don’t know, I wasn’t really— I didn’t really listen. I don’t really believe her anymore, I— I guess.”

Bev whistles. “Breakthrough City, Eddie. I’m impressed. What’s your therapist’s number? Does she take straight men, too?”

Ben laughs as Eddie hisses,  _ “Bev.” _

“Oh, geez, sorry,” Bev says, her face creasing up as she frowns. Eddie’s heart is pounding in his chest at the thought of himself not counting as a straight man, even though he’s a fucking— he’s a  _ grown adult,  _ he wants to be able to process his own emotions without having a fucking  _ meltdown  _ over them, but then stupid shit like  _ that  _ just bowls him over out of nowhere.

_ I’m gay,  _ Eddie tells himself, in his head.  _ I’m gay I’m gay I’m gay. _

“Are you okay, honey?” Bev asks quietly.

“I’m gay,” Eddie says in response. Ben leans around Bev to look at Eddie in surprise. Bev leans over the arm separating their seats, hugging Eddie so tightly he feels his back crack.

“I’m so proud of you, Eddie,” Bev says tearfully into his neck. Eddie rubs her back as Ben grins dopily at him.

“Me, too,” Ben says. There’s a beat, and then he says, “Not to be a drag— And, uhh, repeat myself, actually, but— What about Myra?”

Bev pulls away from Eddie to thump Ben lightly on the arm. He laughs, so she leans over and kisses over the spot she’s flicked, like she’s soothing a wound. It makes Eddie’s chest hurt again, so he looks away as Bev hisses, “Don’t ask about her.”

“It’s a fair question,” Eddie says, because it’s not like Bev expected him  _ not  _ to hear that. “I— I don’t know. I can’t stay with her, can I?”

“No, honey, I don’t think so,” Bev answers, which is nice of her. She could’ve just said,  _ Of course not, dipshit,  _ which is probably what Eddie would’ve said to himself if he had the chance.

Eddie’s brain is still spinning through thoughts faster than he can think them, so Ben and Bev leave him alone for a bit as he shuts his eyes and pretends to sleep while he just thinks. It doesn’t make his headache any better, but he realizes he’s in the  _ through  _ part of working through things. He needs to make changes. He needs to leave Myra, for one, and he thinks he needs to talk to Richie. He thinks he  _ really  _ needs to talk to Richie, even if he’s not absolutely certain what he wants, because the thought of Richie moving on makes him panic and he just can’t let things keep going the way they are.

He ends up resigning himself to needing to talk to Richie once he gets to Los Angeles. He’s thrilled to see Stan and Patty again, when they meet at baggage claim, and he hugs Bill and Mike tightly before he climbs into their car, but he’s itching to see Richie. He misses him, yeah, (and he’d never admit to missing him  _ most,  _ even if it  _ was  _ true), but he also just wants to— to tell him. He understands now why Richie had been so urgent to him that day in Derry, in the hospital.

“You should just go for the throat,” Mike says in the car, twisting around in the passenger seat of his van as Bill drives it expertly. It’s strange to see the way they’re slowly growing into each other’s lives like tangling roots, becoming one entangled plant together. Eddie pulls out his phone and opens his messages from Richie again.  _ I’m actually seeing someone. _

“What?” Eddie asks.

“Go for the throat,” Mike repeats. “I think Richie would appreciate the honesty. Just get it over with.”

Eddie thinks it’s a good idea in theory, but he doesn’t think he could pull it off; he’s proven right when they get there and Richie opens the front door of his place with a delighted, “Eds!”

“Hey, Rich,” Eddie says, choked. Richie hesitates before he moves in to hug him, and that beat, that one  _ second  _ where Richie thought Eddie would reject his hug, it makes Eddie  _ sick. _

“How was the flight?” Richie asks, clasping Eddie by the upper arms. Eddie stares up at him, feeling  _ good  _ for the first time in a  _ long  _ time. He’s been fixing everything in his life but this,  _ this—  _ He’s found the last piece of it all. It’s Richie.

“It wasn’t too bad,” Eddie tells him. Someone comes up beside them, just an inch or two taller than Eddie, and Richie pulls back, throwing his arms across the guy’s shoulders.

“Guys, this is Arnie,” Richie says. “Arnie, these are the guys.”

“Hello, guys,” Arnie says to them. Eddie hates him on instinct. He’s looking away from them already without actually letting them introduce themselves, ignoring Richie’s hand on his when he tries to take it. Arnie leaves, and Richie just huffs a laugh, turning back to them.

“He’s, uhh— Distracted.  _ Anyways,”  _ Richie says, clapping his hands together, “I want to hug  _ all  _ of you, stop standing in my doorway like the spectre of death and get  _ in  _ here, you bunch of Losers.”

Eddie moves out of the way so the rest of them can fit into Richie’s entryway, spilling jackets and shoes and bags everywhere while Richie kicks shit aside and ushers them in. He’s a slob at heart still, just like he always used to be, Eddie’s pleased to find; it makes him feel like maybe he does still know Richie.

“How long’s this been going on?” Ben asks, as Richie guides them to the kitchen to grab them drinks, supposedly. Eddie pokes around closets and open doorways on his way, curious about the place. It’s still surprisingly empty, not much of Richie evident in the furniture or decor yet. It’s just weirdly sterile right now.

“What?” Richie asks.

“You and Arnie,” Ben asks, because he can technically claim ignorance since Richie didn’t tell him  _ directly. _

“Just a couple of dates,” Richie tells him. “He said he wanted to be here today, I don’t know. Wanted to see my friends, I guess. It’s nothing serious.” He looks at Eddie, just for a brief flicker of a moment. Then, though, he’s looking away and laughing again, saying, “Oh,  _ fuck,  _ you guys,  _ look,  _ I actually have an entire oven just for  _ toast—” _

Eddie  _ does  _ still know Richie, because he knows exactly how Richie avoids difficult topics, and he’s avoiding one now. He lets it go, though, because his entire brain gets occupied with hating Arnie again as he slides back into the room and under Richie’s arm.

“Hey,” Arnie says softly to Richie, like they’re not even there. It’s fucking  _ rude,  _ in Eddie’s opinion, and Richie does glance nervously over to them— to  _ him,  _ specifically, and his wide eyes and flushed face are briefly  _ debillitating—  _ but then Arnie puts a hand on Richie’s jaw and guides his attention back down to him. He pulls Richie into a kiss, and Eddie’s stomach twists.

Bev’s hand finds Eddie’s instantly, squeezing tightly, and she pulls at him, but Eddie can’t manage to make himself look away. It’s like a trainwreck if he was the one getting hit with the train. It’s fucking slow motion as Arnie guides Richie’s face down and kisses him gently, then harder, pushing Richie’s glasses up slightly as he parts his lips and Richie’s hand goes to Arnie’s waist and Eddie can’t help but choked back a pained noise.

Richie separates from Arnie, looking towards Eddie with concern, but Eddie’s already looking away. He sees Bill and Mike holding hands, and Ben has his arm across Bev’s shoulders, and Stan is pouring punch into a cup for Patty, and there’s nowhere Eddie can go that he isn’t surrounded by his friends being in stupid fucking  _ love  _ while he’s falling apart.

“It’s so warm in here,” Bev says hurriedly. “Sorry, just—  _ Whoo,  _ I’m not used to Los Angeles yet, it’s  _ so  _ different from New York.”

Richie’s intense stare stays on Eddie for another beat. He starts to turn away just as Eddie looks back, and their eyes actually meet for a second. Eddie’s not sure what he sees there, but it’s heated and it makes him flush. His heart is still pounding, and he still feels sick, so he crosses the kitchen to Stan and Patty and gets a cup of punch for himself, too.

“You okay, Eds?” Stan asks. Patty’s got her arm wound through his, hand resting lightly near his wrist as she sips at her punch and watches Eddie with concern. Eddie sighs, looking back over at Richie, then back.

“Can I tell you something?” Eddie asks. Stan nods, motioning with his cup.

“Of course, Eddie,” Stan tells him.

“Your secrets are safe with me,” Patty says, “unless you want me to leave, which I’d understand completely.”

Eddie likes Patty, and likes her even more for having offered to go, so he waves off her suggestion and says, “I’m going to ask Myra for a divorce.”

“Oh, Eddie,” Stan says, smiling slightly, as Patty looks up at him nervously.

“Is— This is a good thing?” Patty asks hesitantly. Stan doesn’t answer, looking at Eddie, waiting. After a beat, Eddie nods.

“Yeah, I think it might be a good thing,” Eddie tells her.

“What happened?” Patty asks.

“I never really thought about why I married her, but I don’t really love her,” Eddie says. Stan nods, looking so understanding and kind, just like he had when they were children. Grounded. Eddie takes another swig from his punch. “She’s— I don’t know, she’s pretty much my mom, and I think I might be gay anyways.”

“Oh, w— Alright,” Stan says, sounding bewildered. “I wasn’t expecting that part, but that’s— That’s good! Good for you, Eddie, figuring that out.”

Patty doesn’t say anything, but she does let go of Stan’s arm to reach out and put her hand over Eddie’s instead, squeezing lightly and smiling at him so reassuringly that Eddie’s chest aches.

“I’m— Do you mind if I share something personal?” Stan asks. Eddie motions to him, gives him a go-ahead, and Stan says, “I’m pansexual. It wasn’t something Derry really let me explore, but leaving and starting over gave me a lot of new opportunities to really find myself and who  _ I  _ am.”

Eddie glances at Patty, but she just keeps smiling at him. Eddie looks down into his punch, processing the fact that his friends all got fucked over by growing up in their shitty small town. After a moment, he sighs, then looks up at Stan.

“I think I like Richie,” Eddie confesses. It’s the first time he’s said the words like that, like an entire structured sentence with proper spelling and grammar, and he fucking— just  _ says it,  _ puts the words out into the world with a physical shape, and he can’t take them back. He feels like he’s filled with helium, but it’s almost  _ good. _

“I think Richie likes you, too,” Stan says. Patty nods her agreement.

“No, I think so, too,” Patty tells him. “He definitely was interested in you in the hospital in Derry, I said that to Stan  _ more  _ than once.”

“He has a boyfriend now,” Eddie says. He looks over his shoulder and Arnie has drifted away from Richie again, but he’s looking back at Richie while talking to somebody else. Richie’s not paying attention, but Arnie’s eyes are burning into his back. Eddie wants to put a fucking brick wall into them. He’s not sure where this jealousy is coming from, and the strength of the possessiveness freaks him out a little bit, but it mostly just  _ hurts,  _ so fucking bad he just wants to scream.

“Who said anything about a boyfriend?” Patty asks. “I heard him very carefully  _ not  _ say boyfriend, actually.”

“She’s got a point,” Stan agrees. “He didn’t say boyfriend. And, besides, you’re the one asking and you’re  _ married,  _ Eddie. I’m not sure there’s an actual protocol here.”

“Oh, fuck, I’m married,” Eddie says, as if he’s just remembering it, because the word  _ married  _ reminds him that he is, actually, functionally fucking  _ married,  _ and he can’t cheat on his wife. That’s— He can’t actually  _ do  _ that. He’s not— “I can’t— I can’t tell him today, I don’t want to be— I don’t know. I don’t want to be that person, if I can help it, I don’t—”

“Hey, it’s fine,” Stan cuts him off. Eddie deflates slightly as Stan says, “Call Myra after the party.”

“You’re going to  _ call  _ and ask for a divorce?” Patty demands.

“You’re asking for a d-d-d-divorce?” Bill asks, coming up on Eddie’s left side so abruptly that Eddie yelps a little as he jumps. “What happened?”

“I’m gay,” Eddie says, because he’s already come out to the rest of them, save Mike and, now, Richie.

“That’ll d-do it,” Bill comments. Eddie cracks a smile without meaning to, but it almost makes him feel better, so leans into it. Bill grins back over the lid of his cup as he turns back to look at Mike where’s talking to Richie near the kitchen island, their heads bowed close together. “I don’t think I n-n-need to tell you th-that’s fine with me.”

“Yeah, Bill, thanks, means a lot,” Eddie says, as Bill slings an arm across his shoulders and yanks him down to his height. Eddie’s not sure what the fuck Richie’s always joking about Eddie being so short for when Bill’s right there, but he’s snapped out of it by Mike coming over to join their circle by the punch bowl as Richie drifts back over to talk quietly to Arnie by the kitchen sink.

“What’s going on over here?” Mike asks. Eddie’s still staring over at Richie and Arnie as Arnie slides his hand up Richie’s arm, cupping his face again. Richie just looks tired, but then Arnie says something and Richie smiles, his face brightening as he starts to laugh a little, leaning into Arnie’s palm.

“Eddie?” Bev asks, and Eddie snaps back into the moment.

“Oh, sorry, I—” Eddie starts, then stops. He looks back at Richie again, at Arnie cupping Richie’s face in his hands as he kisses him softly, shifting up until his hips are pushing into Richie’s, and Eddie suddenly can’t stand it anymore. “—I think I’m in love with Richie.”

“Of course you are,” Mike says. Eddie glances at him, brow furrowed, just as Mike sighs and takes Bill’s drink from his hand, taking a long pull from it before he points the neck of the bottle at Eddie. “I spent  _ weeks  _ talking him through getting over you, Kaspbrak,  _ and  _ got him to go out with Arnie, just for you to realize  _ now  _ you’re in love with him?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, feeling small and afraid, for a moment. Then, Mike’s face breaks open, and he’s laughing, lighting up from the inside with delight.

“Better late than never,” Mike says, around a fit of laughter, before he finishes Bill’s drink and presses it back into his hands. He tips Bill’s face up with his fingertips, kissing him lightly. Bill leans into him; Eddie can’t help but stare, but he can see that Ben is, too, so he figures it’s fine. “I’ll get you another drink.”

“Thanks,” Bill replies. Mike kisses him again, lingering for a moment longer than normal to keep smiling down at Bill, eyes darting from his eyes down to his lips as he kisses him one last time before going back to Richie’s fridge to grab him a new beer.

It all just makes Eddie dizzy with want. He  _ wants  _ to leave Myra and he  _ wants  _ to be wanted and he  _ wants  _ Richie to love him back. It stings that he can’t have it, and he’s suddenly more impatient than he’s ever been in his life. He’d go to the bathroom and call Myra on impulse right now just to tell her he wants a divorce, if it was up to him, but he’d already promised he’d last out the housewarming party, and he’s determined not to make more of a fool out of himself than he already has.

* * *

Eddie has the most miserable time he’s ever had in his  _ life  _ at Richie’s homecoming party, which is saying something for someone who has been attacked by an alien space clown on two  _ separate  _ occasions and has been emotionally abused by two  _ separate  _ women. Arnie glances at Eddie a little too often through it, which is bad enough. That alone makes Eddie sweat, like Arnie  _ knows  _ what Eddie’s thinking about Richie.

He’s not sure if this is how Arnie always is or if it’s because of Eddie and he’s thinking too deeply about it, but it seems like Arnie’s all over Richie, no matter where they are. He’s leaning into him when Richie’s standing in the doorway to his living room, telling a story that has everyone laughing so hard they can’t breathe. Arnie’s  _ there, _ pretty much sitting in Richie’s fucking  _ lap,  _ when people start to leave the party and it’s pretty much just the Losers and a few others stragglers left, plus fucking  _ Arnie,  _ kissing Richie on the cheek every time Richie so much as glances at him.

Richie keeps tossing nervous glances Eddie’s way, then jerking his head away quickly when he notices Eddie already watching him. It’s tense as shit, and Eddie’s pretty sure they’re not the only ones who feel it, but it’s making him fucking miserable.

“So, Ed,” Arnie says, and drags Eddie’s attention back to the conversation the people in the room are actually having, as opposed to the shouting match he’s having with Arnie in his head. “Richie told me you were married, how come you didn’t bring your wife?”

“She didn’t want to come,” Eddie answers. He’s sure it would’ve been the truth, if he’d asked, but he had  _ not  _ been about to ask. Myra probably would’ve forbidden him from going if she’d known where he was actually going (and who he was actually going to see), and he can’t deal with that anymore. He’s forty years old. People can’t  _ forbid  _ him from doing anything anymore.

“Trouble in paradise?” Arnie asks. Richie’s not looking at Eddie or Arnie, just staring into the middle distance with a glass of water in his hand.

“Nothing major,” Eddie responds. His phone buzzes, as if on cue, and he tugs it out to look down at it. Of course, he sees Myra’s name on the screen, and he bites back a sigh.

“Is that your wife?” Arnie asks. Eddie glares up at him, even if it’s just a question, because Arnie’s tone doesn’t sit right with him. Arnie smiles back at him when they make eye contact, leaning his head into Richie’s shoulder. Richie lifts his arm to wrap around Arnie so he doesn’t fall off his perch half-on Richie’s lap, his hands settling on one hip as he looks up to Eddie.

“Everything alright, Eds?” Richie asks, so earnestly that Eddie wants to just take him and drag him to the kitchen island and fuck him into the countertop, which is a  _ blistering  _ fucking thought he’s never had before. Once he has it though, oh, he fucking  _ wants  _ it, and he knows that he can’t be married to Myra anymore. He can’t.

“I just— Can I take this in private somewhere?” Eddie asks. Richie nods, displacing Arnie gently on the sofa so he can stand and take Eddie down a side hallway off the kitchen. He pushes a door open seemingly at random.

“It’s my room,” Richie tells him.

“Don’t you— I mean, a guest room is fine, or—” Eddie starts, but Richie waves his hand, cutting him off.

“Nobody’ll interrupt you in here,” Richie says. “It’s my room, and my room’s off-limits. You’ll be all set.” Richie motions to Eddie’s phone as it starts to buzz again and says, “Good luck, Eddie, my love. I hope you—” He flushes, then says, “I— Eds, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, it’s— it’s fine,” Eddie tells him, and he’s so fucking close to just letting everything come pouring out of his mouth, every realized truth and thrilling confession and ounce of yearning he has bottled up inside him. But he’s still fucking  _ married,  _ and he  _ can’t.  _ He just needs to last a  _ little  _ while longer. “I remember you used to call me that. When we were kids. It was a song, right?”

Richie smiles at him, lingering in the doorway with his hand on the knob. He leans into the door with a casual shift of his weight and says, “Yeah, it’s a song. The Teen Queens sang it first, but I always liked the—”

“—The Chordettes version, that’s right,” Eddie finishes with him. Richie’s smile becomes a grin, and he sighs, clutching at his chest with his free hand.

“I’ve missed you so much, Eddie Spaghetti,” Richie tells him. Eddie smiles back, and Richie opens his arms, this time without hesitation. Eddie drops his phone on Richie’s bed, ignoring its vibrations as he goes to Richie, letting himself get enveloped by his comforting, solid warmth. He sighs into his chest, wrapping his arms around him and holding him as tightly as he thinks he can get away with.

He holds on a second too long, but Richie lets him before he claps Eddie on the back and pulls back, gripping him by the shoulders for a moment.

“Stay strong, Eds,” Richie tells him. He pounds lightly over his heart with his fist and says, “Be brave. You got this. Stand up for yourself.”

Richie only knows some of it, things that Eddie’s mentioned in passing, but he’s insisted time and time again that Eddie shouldn’t let Myra treat him the way she does. Eddie wants to take Richie’s face between his hands and kiss him until Arnie’s off his skin and Eddie’s all over it, but he fucking— He  _ can’t,  _ but he’s starting to forget why he can’t.

“I have a hard time,” Eddie says. “Sometimes. Standing up for myself, I mean.”

“I hear you,” Richie replies. He’s still holding Eddie by the shoulders, seemingly either unaware of how long it’s been or unwilling to let go. Eddie’s sort of hoping for both, for some reason. “It’s hard to put yourself out there and tell people how you’re really feeling, but it’s worth it. You deserve better than this, Eds.”

Eddie’s chest twists painfully, and he says, “Richie, I’m so—”

“Nah, that’s not what I meant,” Richie cuts him off. He looks down into Eddie’s eyes, and they’re only inches apart. Richie’s bedroom feels so hot and stuffy, not because it’s Los Angeles and his windows are closed but because they are so fucking  _ close,  _ Eddie’s chin tipped up just to be able to make proper eye contact with Richie.

“What’d you mean?” Eddie asks, dropping his voice only slightly lower. Richie’s eyes flick over his face, dropping to his lips before darting back up to meet his eyes again.

“I want you to be happy,” Richie says, almost a whisper. Eddie nods,tipping his chin up a little more. Richie smiles, just a bit, and Eddie’s heart skips in his chest. “Are you happy, Eds?”

“I could be a little happier,” Eddie tells him honestly. It’s  _ flirtatious,  _ and he hasn’t been flirtatious in— in,  _ fuck,  _ he doesn’t even  _ know  _ how long, if ever. Maybe the last time was with Richie, the summer before they’d left for college. Maybe it’s only ever been Richie, for him, really. Maybe it’s only  _ ever  _ been  _ them. _

Richie’s hand holding the door open shakes a little, and the door creaks slightly next to them. Neither of them responds as Richie shifts his weight again, bringing him crucial millimeters closer. Eddie reaches out and up, his fingertips just lightly brushing over Richie’s; Richie’s fingers twitch towards Eddie’s, and he drops his head, just a little. Their noses graze as Richie tips his head slightly; Eddie’s surprised they can’t  _ hear  _ his heart, it’s pounding so hard in his chest, sending his blood roaring in his ears and flaming through his veins.

Eddie tips his head, too, just a little, leaning up to close distance between them, just that last breath of space to kiss Richie, but he does it  _ just _ as Arnie comes spinning around the corner and Richie jerks back faster than the speed of light. Their lips come a literal fucking  _ micron  _ from touching before Richie’s abruptly in the hallway, putting his arm around Arnie and laughing loudly.

“Thanks for finding me, I swear, I’m gonna get lost on one of these safaris one day, mate,” Richie says, dropping into a shitty Australian accent, which is more indicative of his nerves than anything else; Eddie knows he’s had the Australian dude voice down since they were fourteen. “Now, have you found a map for our—”

“Rich, zip it,” Arnie says, and Richie falls quiet. Eddie’s blood boils again as Arnie looks to him and says, “What’d your wife want?”

“Oh,” Eddie says, forgetting the entire fucking reason they’d left the living room in the first place. “I— She’s—”

“Calling again,” Arnie finishes for him, pointing to his phone buzzing with a new call on Richie’s bed. “You should get that.” He turns up to Richie and says, “Come get me a drink?”

Richie nods, pushing his glasses up his nose and says, “You— You’re all set, back here, Eds? All good?”

“Yeah, Rich,” Eddie says, his mouth feeling dry as his heart threatens to escape through his throat. “All good.”

“Good,” Richie says. He hesitates, but then Arnie’s dragging him away, and Richie goes. Eddie has no choice but to turn back to the bed and grab his phone, swiping past the call to his text history with Myra. The texts are all variations of  _ call me back right now  _ with increasing degrees of rage, and so Eddie just sighs as he accepts the incoming call.

_ “Edward,”  _ Myra spits, as soon as he picks up.

“Myra, I—”

“I don’t want to hear it, to be honest with you,” Myra interrupts him. “You vanish  _ again,  _ after last time landed you in the  _ hospital—  _ Eddie, I’m worried about you. I don’t think you’re well.”

“I’m getting  _ better,”  _ Eddie forces out through clenched teeth. “Myra, let me  _ talk—” _

“Eddie, let  _ me  _ talk,” Myra snaps at him. Eddie white-knuckles his phone, but he listens as Myra says, “You scared me half to  _ death.  _ I thought you  _ were  _ dead— For all I knew, actually, you were, because you didn’t even call me when you  _ landed,  _ how did I know you were okay? You know how you get on airplanes and I—”

“Myra, stop,” Eddie cuts her off. “I don’t— I don’t want to hear this.”

There’s a beat of silence. Eddie’s skin crawls.

“What?” Myra asks.

“I don’t want to hear this,” Eddie repeats, glad they’re on opposite sides of the country, if this conversation has to happen the way that it’s happening. “I can’t do this anymore. I don’t want you to be in control of me,  _ I  _ want to be in control of me.”

“I am not in  _ control—” _

“You are,” Eddie says. “And, I don’t know— Maybe that’s just— I don’t know. I don’t know why this keeps happening to me, but I don’t want it to anymore.” He exhales, slowly, then says, “Myra, put me on video call.”

“No.”

“Myra,” he says again. “I want to say this to your face.”

“I’ll hang up,” Myra says, sounding terrified. Eddie hesitates, because he doesn’t want her to be angry. He has to go back home to her, and if she’s angry, she—

Well. He doesn’t  _ have  _ to go back home to her.

“Then I’ll text it to you,” Eddie says, abruptly bold. He looks at himself in the mirror and thinks,  _ This man can change his own life, if you believe he can,  _ and a hysterical grin fills his own face. He has to look away, because he’s almost freaking himself out, and he says, “Answer the video call.”

He pulls the phone away from his ear and taps the option to open FaceTime. It rings once, then twice, but Myra does accept it. She’s sitting at their kitchen table, and her face is all red. Eddie’s panicking again, wanting to fix everything so nothing has to change. He closes his eyes, like his therapist taught him, and takes a deep breath in, then out. In his mind’s eye, behind his eyelids, he sees Richie a breath away, leaning in to kiss him. He knows he’s making the right decision. He  _ has  _ to be; the wrong decision could  _ never  _ feel as right as Richie feels to him.

“Myra, I’m not in love with you,” Eddie tells her. “I want a divorce.”

“Eddie, this is because of—”

“It doesn’t matter what it’s because of,” Eddie says. “It doesn’t matter— I— I  _ want  _ this. I want this for  _ me,  _ because I can’t live like this anymore, I  _ can’t.  _ And— I don’t know, maybe there’s someone out there who really does need you, but I don’t. I don’t need you. I don’t need  _ anyone.” _

“You don’t know what you’re saying,” Myra says, her red face becoming blotchy as she starts to cry. Eddie can feel himself starting to cry, too, as he sits heavily down on the edge of Richie’s bed. He’s not sad, though. Just overwhelmed, just emotional. It’s a lot to feel at once, too much, and he drops his face in one hand as he sighs.

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” he says, lifting his head to look into the camera again. “I want a divorce. I don’t want couples’ therapy and I don’t want the apartment, I’ll move out. I just want this to be over.”

“Fine,” Myra spits at him.  _ “Fine.  _ But when you decide you want—”

“I won’t,” Eddie says, and hangs up. His heart’s pounding and his hands are shaking, as he sets his phone aside gingerly on Richie’s bed. Everything in him wants to pick up the phone and call her back, to apologize and go home and fix everything, but he can’t. He  _ can’t.  _ He needs to make his life better and it will never get better if he doesn’t fucking do this.

“It’s like an infection,” Eddie tells his reflection. “Drain the parts that are making you sick so you can start to heal.”

“Talking to yourself in here, Eds?” Richie asks. Eddie whirls, already smiling, the words  _ “I’m getting a divorce,”  _ already on his lips, but Arnie’s still under Richie’s arm, when he sees them in the doorway. Arnie looks almost smug, when they make eye contact, like he knew what Eddie wanted and he’s glad he was able to thwart it.

“I—” Eddie starts, then stops. He looks back at his phone on Richie’s bed, then says to the bedspread, “I told Myra I want a divorce.”

_ “What?”  _ Richie demands. He lets go of Arnie without a second thought to go to Eddie, hands hovering over his shoulders before he sits down next to him and claps a hand on his arm. “Eddie, man, I am— I am  _ so  _ sorry, are you okay?”

_ “He  _ asked for the divorce, Richie,” Arnie says. Eddie glares at him, just for a split second, long enough for Arnie to register, before he looks to Richie. “I’m sure he’s fine. Can—”

“What happened?” Richie asks, just a little louder than normal over the end of whatever Arnie’s question was about to be. Eddie tries not to feel pleased about it.

“Richie, I— Can I tell you something?” Eddie asks. Richie nods vigorously, but, before he can open his mouth, Eddie adds, “Alone?”

“Oh,” Richie says. He looks up to Arnie, then back to Eddie before he says, “Uhh, I—”

“It’s just— I already told the other Losers, but I think you should know, too,” Eddie explains. Richie looks back to Arnie.

“Hey, Arn, do you mind—”

“Say no more,” Arnie says, lifting one hand. He blows Richie a kiss, then leaves, the door remaining open wide behind him. Richie’s already looking at Eddie when Eddie turns back around, though, so Eddie doesn’t waste any more time worrying about what Arnie does or doesn’t mean.

“What’s eating you, Eddie?” Richie asks. Eddie nods, looking down at his hands in his lap.

“I— I just wanted you to know this,” Eddie says. This is the second-hardest part, mostly because he feels like absolute  _ shit  _ about this when it comes to Richie specifically, but he knows he needs to do it. “I’m gay. I’m divorcing Myra because I’m not in love with her and I  _ can’t  _ love her and she’s— She’s just like my mother, she controls me and I can’t let that happen anymore. I’m done living like that. I want to live the way  _ I  _ want to live, Richie. Do you know what I mean?”

Richie nods, just once, looking a little confused. “Don’t get me wrong, Eds, I’m glad this revelation has come, but, uhh—”

“I didn’t realize before,” Eddie tells him. Richie looks him over, brow furrowing slightly. “I just pretended it didn’t exist, when I felt those feelings, I’d just— I shoved them down and told myself I didn’t want something like that with a man, but, Richie, I  _ do.  _ I want that.”

Richie smiles, just a little, pulling up the corners of his mouth as he looks away. “Good for you, Eddie. I’m so happy for you.”

“I didn’t know when you told me,” Eddie hurries to say. He wants to make that  _ explicitly  _ clear, not to dance around it, so Richie  _ knows.  _ “I was still dealing with— with everything. Being back in Derry brought it all back up but now that I’ve had time to— to process everything, and sit with it all, I know what the truth is, and I’m gay, and I’m ready— I’m ready to be gay. To live like that.”

Richie grins, now, and he laughs before saying, “You’re ‘ready to be gay?’ I’m  _ so _ fucking flattered to be here for the beginning of the journey, Eds.”

Eddie wants to say,  _ You’re the end of the journey, Rich,  _ but it’s so fucking sappy that Richie would undoubtedly roast him for it, so he doesn’t. Just as he’s about to say, “So, what do you think?” instead, Richie claps him on the shoulder.

“I don’t mean to be presumptuous here,” Richie says, and Eddie leans in slightly, thinking  _ be as presumptuous as you want, presume anything you want, please please please.  _ Richie continues, though, with, “Do you need a place to stay? I mean, if you’re getting a divorce, I’m assuming you’re not gonna wanna go back home right away. And— Well, I know this isn’t New York— Actually, this is a stupid fucking offer, I have no idea what I’m—”

“No, I—” Eddie cuts him off, panicked, because the offer made his heart literally  _ throb. _ He’d originally been planning to stay with Bill and Mike like the rest of the Losers, since Richie’s still setting up furniture and everything in his new place, but Eddie hurriedly says, “I can— My bags are in the car, if— I could extend my vacation. Until I figure things out.”

“Just until you figure things out,” Richie echoes. Eddie nods. “I— Well, the couch is already set up, I can just sleep out there and you can have my bed.”

“I’m not kicking you out of your bed, Richie,” Eddie scolds him. He stands up, brushing imaginary dust off himself just to try and get himself into some semblance of order. “I really shouldn’t even be staying—”

“Hey, whoa, none of that, I just got my Spaghetti back,” Richie cuts him off. He gets up, too, and yanks Eddie into a one-armed hug, tousling Eddie’s hair with his other hand like they’re fourteen instead of forty. Eddie lets him do it, laughing as he pushes him off a few seconds later than he used to. “I’m not gonna lose him that fast.”

“You could never lose me, Rich,” Eddie says, and it’s maybe too much, but they  _ definitely  _ almost kissed earlier, unless Eddie’s reading too much into things, but— He doesn’t  _ think  _ he is.

Richie takes him back out to the living room once he’s sure he’s alright, and Eddie sits down quietly next to Bev. Richie takes his seat on the end of the sofa again, and Arnie’s back in his lap in moments, making Eddie dizzy with the speed and energy Arnie does it with. His stomach lurches with jealousy, and he makes himself look down at his phone instead.

His phone buzzes with a text from Bev.  _ All okay? _

Eddie looks up and smiles at her across the room. She smiles back before he looks down to type out,  **_I’m getting a divorce._ **

“Oh,” Bev exclaims out loud, her hand flying up over her mouth as she reads Eddie’s text. She looks up at him, smiling slightly behind her slim fingers. He grins, now, feeling giddy with mixed emotions and adrenaline and just— the overwhelming  _ everything  _ of it all.

“I told Myra I want a divorce,” Eddie says. Stan’s on his other side, and he claps Eddie on the shoulder as Eddie continues, “I’m getting a divorce, and it’s— I think it’s good. I think it’s gonna be really good for me, guys, really.”

“And he’s gonna stay here for a little while until he figures things out,” Richie adds, shooting at Eddie with his finger guns and winking at him.

“I thought I was going to stay over tonight,” Arnie asks. Richie’s eyes flick down to him, then over to Eddie.

“I’m sure—” Richie starts to say, and Eddie wants to save him, so he sits up slightly and waves Richie off.

“I’m fine with it,” Eddie says. “If you are, I mean.”

It’s faux-innocent, and he thinks Stan might be onto him, but Arnie just half-shrugs and says, “Fine,” as Richie grins and fist-pumps the air.

“Sleepover!” Richie exclaims. “Everyone should sleep over! I’m—”

“Thanks but no thanks,” Bev cuts him off at the get. “I’d much rather sleep in one of Bill and Mike’s preconstructed beds instead of the bed-in-a-box in your guest room.”

“You build it, you name it,” Richie offers. Bev laughs at him, swatting at him when he leans across the coffee table to jab at her until she laughs harder. “Eds can help me build it tomorrow so he’s got a nice place to sleep. Right, Eds?”

“Right,” Eddie says, overjoyed at the prospect of  _ tomorrow.  _ It’s a new chance, even if Richie’s still not entirely available. He’s a step closer to figuring out everything he wants, now. He just needs to get Richie alone and confess his feelings and see if Richie will still have him.

* * *

Eddie psyches himself out about telling Richie how he feels about him. One day passes, then two, then three; before he knows it, it’s been a week since he told Myra he wants a divorce. He’s had a friend of his serve her the divorce papers from his lawyer, so it’s all legally moving now.

_ Then why can’t I fucking get it together,  _ Eddie thinks hard at himself. He looks himself dead in the eye in the mirror over the bathroom sink, cold water dripping from his face, off the point of his chin.  _ Just tell him. He told you. Tell him. _

The thing is, there’s  _ never  _ a good time. Every time Eddie finally gears up enough to talk to Richie, either Arnie is there or Richie is busy or the Losers have something planned. Stan and Patty had to go back to Georgia, but Ben and Bev extended their trip, too. The beauty of living on their own schedules and running their own companies, Eddie supposes, as he uses up more of his PTO to stay in Los Angeles.

Arnie is over all the  _ fucking  _ time, which is the most infuriating part. He’s almost always on his phone, and he’ll leave for a few hours at night sometimes, but that’s about the only reprieve Eddie ever gets from him. Otherwise, he’s a constant fucking shadow tailing Richie around the place.

Eddie’s not brave enough to ask if they’re boyfriends officially or what the deal is with that, but he knows they’re exclusive and said they weren’t seeing other people, because he heard Richie telling Bev and Bill that the other day over coffee.

It pops into his head now only because Arnie’s left his phone on the coffee table while he and Richie were working on making dinner in the kitchen, and it’s screen-up, which it almost never is. The screen lights up with a Snapchat notification from someone named Bradley; below the notification is a list of texts, since Arnie has an Android phone, all from the same person, Bradley. The first couple are innocuous—  _ hey, you busy?  _ and  _ i just got off work, seeing your text about the game made my afternoon,  _ the latter of which makes zero sense to Eddie.

The third text, though, says  _ fuck i miss you,  _ which seems sort of intense, and the fourth message says,  _ are you still free tonight? i can’t fucking wait to eat your ass,  _ and Eddie yelps, jumping back from the table like the phone exploded, his hands over his mouth.

Richie comes skidding into the room. He takes in Eddie for a moment before he says, “You didn’t see a fucking spider, did you?”

Eddie shakes his head vigorously, then points. “Richie—”

“Not a fucking rat,” Richie says. He looks nervously around their feet, looking like he’s about to bolt. “I swear to—”

“Richie, no, stop,” Eddie says. The messages are flashing in his mind’s eye, and he’s moving from shell-shocked to incensed, a hot flame of rage licking through him before he’s abruptly filled with infuriated fire. His hands start shaking as he thinks about the concept of someone— someone fucking dating Richie just to  _ cheat  _ on him, someone telling Richie they like him and they only want to be with him and they’re only dating  _ him  _ just to turn around and— and fuck someone  _ else— _

“Holy shit, Eddie, sit down, you look like you’re gonna pass out,” Richie tells him. He puts his hand on Eddie’s arm, guides him to sit, but Eddie’s still staring at the phone. Arnie comes in the room, just then, as Richie’s kneeling next to Eddie and Eddie’s trying to stop his hands from shaking so badly.

“What’s up with him?” Arnie asks. Eddie wants more than anything to hit him, but he can’t make himself move. He’s never hated anyone fucking  _ more,  _ and he thinks Pennywise fucking  _ included. _

Eddie points at Arnie’s phone on the table and says, “You got a text from someone named Bradley.”

Arnie blanches so fast he’s pale almost before Eddie’s done talking. He’d draped himself Richie’s sofa when he’d first come in, but he’s jolting into a sitting position now, grabbing his phone off the coffee table. Richie stands up straight, one hand still on Eddie’s shoulder as he looks to Arnie.

“What?” Richie asks, seeming confused, which— fair, Eddie has said pretty much nothing of substance.

“Do not,” Arnie spits. Eddie stands up, too, so Arnie does, shooting to his feet and pointing at Eddie. “You shut the—”

“He’s cheating on you,” Eddie tells Richie without breaking eye contact with Arnie. “I saw the texts.”

All three of them are silent. Arnie’s glaring at Eddie still, but Eddie forces himself to look away to Richie instead. When their eyes lock, Richie’s brow furrows, just a little. Eddie feels his own face fall slightly, because— because it’s fucking  _ Richie.  _ Who the fuck could cheat on  _ Richie? _

Whatever Richie finds in Eddie’s face, he believes it, because he turns to Arnie and says, “Who’s Bradley?”

“He doesn’t—”

“Can I see?” Richie asks. Eddie looks to Arnie, who looks even chalkier than he had when Eddie’d first looked away.

“I don’t think that’s…” Arnie says, trailing off. He unlocks his phone, then says, “Yeah, sure, just let me—”

“I don’t think so,” Eddie cuts him off, leaning across the coffee table and pulling the phone out of Arnie’s hands. Arnie snatches at it, but Eddie darts away from him, passing the phone off to Richie, who just holds the phone up above his head until his arm is fully extended and neither Eddie nor Arnie has a chance of reaching it.

Richie tips his chin up, tilting his head back until he can read the messages on the notification bar. His own face starts to pale as he reads them. Eddie wraps his fingers around the wrist of Richie’s other arm where it’s dangling at his side, watching as he taps the most recent message and scrolls through the conversation. Eddie can’t read the tiny text at this distance, but whatever Richie’s reading is making his face twist up into such a desolate expression of sadness that Eddie has to hold back from doing more than squeezing his wrist.

“What the fuck,” Richie manages, choked. He swipes the notification bar again and opens the Snapchat, finally lowering his arm as it becomes clear he’s seen too much and Arnie stops fighting for the phone. Eddie sees a flash of the image, enough to see that it’s a naked photo, and his nails bite into Richie’s wrist briefly before he lets him go, apologizing under his breath as rage shoots through him again.

“He doesn’t mean anything to me,” Arnie tells him. He reaches out for his phone again, and Richie doesn’t fight for it anymore. He just lets Arnie pull it out of his hand. Eddie looks up at him worriedly as Arnie pockets his phone and says, “Richie, I—”

“Please leave,” Richie tells him. Arnie’s eyes flick to Eddie, and he opens his mouth to protest, but Richie says, “I don’t want to see you again. Please go.”

Arnie takes a step forward, but Eddie’s already moving, filling the distance between them in three quick strides until he’s only an inch from Arnie.

“Try me and see where it gets you,” Eddie tells him. He points to the door and says, “He wants you to go, so  _ go.” _

Arnie grabs his jacket and his shoes before going to the door. Before he leaves, he stops, looking to Eddie where he’s got his hand on the door, waiting for Arnie to go.

“He won’t fuck you,” Arnie spits at him. Eddie’s brow furrows as he glowers at him.

“I don’t care if he never fucks me,” Eddie tells him. “He’s a fucking person, you ass. And he’s fucking—” Eddie looks over his shoulder, then leans in close to Arnie and says, “That is Richie  _ fucking  _ Tozier you just fucked over. I hope you understand that you will  _ never  _ have anyone as good as him again, and it’s  _ only  _ for his fucking sake that I’m not smashing your teeth into the fucking pavement outside right now, do you understand me?”

Arnie keeps glaring at Eddie, but Eddie glares back, and he’s knows that Arnie can tell how fucking serious he is, after a moment. His eyes flash, and then he’s gone, and Eddie slams the door shut behind him, locking it in place.

“I’m so sorry,” Eddie tells Richie from across the room. He’s hovering by the door, but Richie’s still standing over the coffee table, unmoving even though it’s been minutes. “I didn’t—”

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Richie says quietly. Eddie frowns.

“What?” Eddie asks. “Made him leave? But you—”

“No, not made him  _ leave,  _ Eddie,” Richie cuts him off. He motions at the coffee table distractedly with a sweeping arm and says, “I don’t— You shouldn’t have been invading his privacy, Eddie. What the fuck does it matter what’s going on? It’s none of your fucking business.”

“None of my fucking—” Eddie stops, then inhales sharply through his nose. “Richie, he was  _ cheating  _ on you. What, should I have said fucking  _ nothing?  _ Would that have been preferable, if you lived in the dark with a man who’s cheating on you while I went through my days never telling you?”

“At least I wouldn’t be alone!” Richie explodes. He looks on the verge of tears, which makes sense, but Eddie feels like there’s his fault, somehow, but he’s not sure  _ how. _

“You’re not alone,” Eddie tells him. “The fact that I care enough to tell you at  _ all  _ should tell you you’re not alone, Richie.”

“You  _ know  _ that’s not what I mean,” Richie says, finally moving to go around the coffee table until he’s on the other side, the same side Eddie’s on. They’re still a couple of yards away, but, to Eddie, it feels like miles and miles. The air in the living room is so fucking tense, and not like Richie’s bedroom a week ago; this feels like the air is about to crackle and erupt.

“What do you mean?” Eddie asks. He doesn’t dare move away from the front door, afraid to startle Richie away and break whatever this spell of honesty and emotion is that’s come over them both.

Richie throws his hands in the air, his voice breaking and tears starting to stream down his face as he says, “Well, I don’t  _ fucking  _ know, Eds, what could I  _ possibly  _ mean, when Stan’s  _ stupid  _ in love with his wife and Ben and Bev get to be together and Bill and Mike made their confessions and everything went fucking  _ great?  _ What the fuck could I possibly  _ fucking  _ mean when I tell you I’m in love with you, and you tell me you can’t be with me because you’re married and straight, and then you fucking— You fly out to see me just to tell me you’re gay and getting a divorce, and to tell me my stupid—  _ fucking  _ boyfriend— Sorry,  _ not  _ boyfriend, don’t fucking let  _ him  _ hear me saying that— is cheating on me? I don’t— How am I  _ supposed  _ to feel, when everybody gets to be fucking happy except  _ me?” _

Richie’s just standing in front of him, so fucking raw and exposed with tears pouring down his face so fast that Eddie starts to cry, too, feeling his face burn as the first tear falls down his cheek and he inhales sharply.

“Richie, I’m not happy,” Eddie tells him. Richie glares at him, shaking with anger and sadness and, fuck, Eddie doesn’t even  _ know  _ what, but Eddie continues, “I’m  _ not.  _ I’ve done— Richie, I’ve been doing a lot of thinking and working and I’m— I’m in love with you. I was gonna— I had a longer speech ready, sort of, but you kind of look like you’re going to be sick and, honestly,  _ I  _ kinda feel like  _ I’m  _ gonna be sick, so—”

“Say it again,” Richie cuts him off, choked. Eddie looks at him, really  _ looks,  _ at his wet blue eyes and his big, shaking hands, and he smiles.

“I’m in love with you, Richie,” Eddie repeats. “And I’m so sorry I didn’t know that before. I didn’t get it yet. I needed to figure it out, and I needed to— I needed to know who I am before I could know what I wanted, but I know now. I know what I want now.”

Richie keeps looking at him, and it takes Eddie a moment to realize he’s waiting for Eddie to continue.

“You, Rich,” Eddie tells him. Richie’s brow furrows, like that answer somehow doesn’t make sense, so Eddie insists, “It’s  _ you,  _ I want  _ you.” _

“I—” Richie hesitates, then stops. “Eds, I’m— I just— I’m worried you’re just—” He flails his hands around his head in a spinning motion, then says, “I don’t want you to commit to something you’re not ready for just because you feel bad for me.”

Eddie looks at him incredulously, because he can’t even  _ begin  _ to process a world in which he’d be doing this as a fucking  _ favor  _ to Richie. Being in love with him has been slowly destroying him; this isn’t doing either of them  _ any  _ fucking favors.

At least, not yet.

Eddie steps forward, then says, “Richie, I know I— I fucked up, and I hurt you. I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t— I wasn’t ready yet, but I did hurt you and I understand if you’ve moved on or if you just can’t be with me after that. It’ll fucking—” Eddie laughs humorlessly, says, “Rich, it’ll fucking kill me, I’m not gonna lie to you. But I’m so fucking in love with you. I want to be with you and I want you in any capacity you’ll have me and I don’t want to lose you, Richie, I  _ really  _ don’t. Please don’t make me lose you.”

Richie’s still studying him, but his expression is softening and his tears are slowing, the tense lines of his shoulders and back relaxing slightly as he processes what Eddie is saying to him. Eddie takes his body language as an invitation, crossing the space between them to close the distance and stop just inches from Richie.

“I swear to you,” Eddie tells him. He reaches up, slowly smoothing his hand over Richie’s cheek and jaw. Richie jumps, but Eddie just keeps going slow, letting Richie calm and settle into his touch. Eddie lets his other hand come up, too, unhurried; Richie doesn’t jump this time as Eddie lays his hand along the other side of his face.

“Are you  _ sure?”  _ Richie asks quietly. He swallows, and Eddie can feel his jaw and throat working under his hands.

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more sure of anything in my life,” Eddie tells him. “I mean that. I think this is the first thing I’ve done for  _ me  _ in a long time.”

“Not for me?” Richie asks, smiling a little, but Eddie can see the insecurity in it, can hear it in his voice.

“No, it’s not for you,” Eddie assures him. He runs a hand up through Richie’s thick hair and says, “Well, maybe a little. I  _ do  _ want you to be happy, I mean that.”

_ “You  _ make me happy,” Richie tells him. The fact that he’s said that seems like he might be starting to believe him, and Eddie smiles, smoothing the pad of his thumb under Richie’s eye, beneath his glasses. Richie smiles back down at him, tipping his face slightly into Eddie’s fingers. He’s still holding back a little, still slightly reserved, but his hands come up to rest on Eddie’s hips, and he’ll take it.

“What’s bothering you?” Eddie asks. Richie starts to look away, but Eddie uses his light touch on his face to keep him centered, their eyes still locked together. “Hey. What is it?”

“I don’t—” Richie starts, then stops, huffing. Eddie tips his chin up, hoping Richie will close the distance and kiss him, but he doesn’t. Instead, Eddie just withdraws an extra couple of inches, frowning up at him. Richie tilts his head up, laughing dryly as he says, “I sorta— Sorry. It doesn’t really feel like this is actually happening. I sort of keep expecting you to slap me or something.”

“I won’t slap you,” Eddie tells him.

“Not even if I ask nicely?” Richie asks, and  _ there’s  _ the Richie that Eddie knows so well. He grins, tightening his grip on Richie’s face slightly. His face flushes under Eddie’s hands.

“Maybe then,” Eddie allows. There’s still a lot they have to explore, if Richie will have him. “I do want you to kiss me, though, I can  _ assure  _ you.”

“I  _ know,  _ but,” Richie says, because clearly he  _ doesn’t  _ know, “I— Are you  _ sure?  _ I just— Are you sure this is what you want, Eddie?”

Eddie looks Richie over, giving the question the thought it deserves. Richie’s still blushing under Eddie’s touch, his cheeks all red as Eddie’s fingertips stroke over his skin. He can  _ feel _ Richie’s heart pounding. He’s never wanted anything  _ more. _

He licks his lips, watching Richie’s attention drop down to his mouth as he says, “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life, Richie. I  _ promise—” _

As Eddie’s  _ promising,  _ Richie fully gives in, letting himself believe Eddie is very much consenting, since Eddie’s never fucking consented  _ more,  _ and he finally,  _ finally  _ closes the distance between them completely, his hands coming up to gather Eddie’s face at the knobs of his jaw and tug him up into the kiss. Eddie rises onto the balls of his feet, his own hands falling to wrap up in Richie’s shirt as Richie licks past the seam of his lips and behind his teeth, dirtying the kiss in seconds. It finally feels  _ real,  _ and Eddie moans into Richie’s mouth.

“Fuck,  _ Eddie,”  _ Richie mutters, pulling back so he can kiss along the freckles spanning the bridge of Eddie’s nose, along his cheekbone and down his jaw, until he’s biting at the column of his throat. “You really—  _ Ahh,  _ fuck, Eds, shit—”

Eddie rolls his hips up into Richie’s again, clinging to his shoulders to get enough leverage to do it properly, so Richie can feel the hard line of his cock through his pants.

“Yes, Richie, I  _ really,”  _ Eddie assures him. Richie dives back in to kiss him again hungrily, his hands hurriedly undoing the buttons of Eddie’s shirt and shoving it back off his shoulders.

Richie’s initial reticence scratches at the back of Eddie’s mind, as he tears Richie’s shirt off over his head and ducks to bite into his soft chest. Richie moans so loudly Eddie has no choice but to pull back, panting as he looks down between them to pop the button on Richie’s jeans and hurriedly unzip them.

“Wait, fuck,  _ fuck,”  _ Richie manages, pushing Eddie’s hands away. Ice water shoots through Eddie’s veins, but then Richie’s saying, “My room, let’s go to my bedroom, I’m too old to fuck on the floor or the sofa like some fucking twenty-year-old—”

“Less talk, more walk,” Eddie orders him. Richie laughs, nearly tripping over himself as Eddie lightly pushes him in the direction of the hallway off the kitchen. They manage to make it there without mauling each other in the hall, but it’s a close call as Eddie kicks Richie’s bedroom door shut and pushes him backwards over the bed.

“Eddie Kaspbrak takin’ charge,” Richie comments. Eddie gets on knee on the foot of the bed and leans over Richie, unzipping his jeans the rest of the way before he yanks them down his legs.

“Somebody has to,” Eddie tells him, and Richie shivers, goosebumps rising on his skin. Eddie raises an eyebrow at him as he folds Richie’s jeans and sets them aside on an armchair in the corner of his room. He pushes Richie back on the bed, bows over to him to tug his socks off before he climbs off the bed and removes his own pants, socks, and shoes, leaving them both in their underwear. Richie props himself up on one elbow in his bed, curly hair tousled and glasses slightly askew.

“You sure about this?” Richie asks. “Once you see my dick, there’s no going back. Either you’re in or you’re out.”

“I’m in,” Eddie tells him, climbing back up over him on the bed and straddling his lap. Richie tips his head up to keep eye contact as he goes, but Eddie guides him backwards until he’s flat on his back again, scooting him up until his head’s on his pillows.

“I’m serious when I say  _ out,”  _ Richie says. “I’ll have you killed. My cock is a government secret.”

“You’re insufferable,” Eddie says, as he pulls his own underwear off with moderate maneuvering, tossing them to the armchair with the rest of the clothes. When he looks back down at Richie, he’s blushing the splotchy flush again, red patches filling his face, neck, and chest. He ducks his head, mouths along the hot line of his collarbones, and murmurs, “You like this, Rich?”

“Very much,” Richie tells him, groaning as Eddie rolls his hips, the bare, hard line of his cock rolling against Richie’s through Richie’s boxer-briefs. The material is soft, so it’s not difficult to feel Richie’s rock-hard dick through it. He can feel how fucking  _ big  _ he is, now that there’s no clothes in their way, and he’s suddenly hungry to see him naked, so he tugs Richie’s waistband down and pulls his underwear off so they’re both competely bare.

“Holy shit,” Eddie breathes. As far as gay experiences go, this one is, so far, phenomenal, in Eddie’s opinion. Richie’s gasping for breath, his chest heaving as he looks up at Eddie sitting over him, his blue eyes blown black by his huge pupils. “I’m— I was going to ask if you wanted to fuck me, but I— I don’t think—”

Richie moans, sending all the remaining blood in Eddie’s body rocketing to his cock as Richie tips his head back into the pillows, inhaling deeply. Once he’s caught his breath, he says, “Are you fucking— You don’t think you can take my fucking  _ cock?  _ I’d finger you first, Eds, you know that, right?”

“I know that,” Eddie snaps at him, not angry in the least. He wraps his hand loosely around Richie’s dick, running the pad of his thumb slowly over the head. Richie exhales in a long breath, his chest slowly deflating as his hands clench into fists in the sheets. “I’m telling you I think I need more time than I’m willing to wait to get ready for your cock so I just want to fuck  _ you  _ instead, is that  _ okay?” _

Richie nods jerkily, his cock pulsing in Eddie’s hand as he says, “Fucking—  _ Yes,  _ that’s okay, whatever you want, I have lube and condoms in the nightstand—  _ Fuck.” _

“You like this,” Eddie says more than asks. Richie nods again anyways.

“Fuck yeah, I like this,” Richie agrees. Eddie twists his wrist, slipping his hand down Richie’s cock, then up again, slicking it slightly with the precum spread from the head over the shaft by his thumb. Richie shudders, his back arching as he tries to push into Eddie’s grip. Eddie lets him go, leaning over to dig through the bedside drawer. He can hardly see, so he flicks on Richie’s lamp, and Richie flinches backwards. “Can you— Eds, shut that thing off, fucking—”

“What?” Eddie asks. He finds a bottle of lube and a condom in Richie’s drawer and pulls them out, setting them on the nightstand. He takes the lube first, leaving the lamp on as he pops it open and starts spreading slick over his fingers.

“Eds, I’m serious,” Richie says. Eddie reaches down and presses lightly at Richie’s hole with his index finger, and Richie inhales sharply, his hips jerking back as he struggles to keep still. “I don’t— Turn it off.”

“You don’t what?” Eddie asks. He slips his finger in slowly, centimeter by centimeter, massaging at the tight ring of muscle until Richie starts to relax. “You can tell me. I won’t judge whatever it is, even if you’re being ridiculous.”

Richie makes a face at him, but he says, “I don’t want you to see… me. When we have sex.” Eddie lifts his head, his index finger now buried in Richie almost to the second knuckle as he looks into his eyes. Richie looks back, then squirms slightly, huffing a half-laugh. “Little weird that you just stopped moving, Eds, I won’t lie to you.”

“Why wouldn’t you want me to see you?” Eddie asks, fucking  _ meaning it,  _ because he’s never wanted to look at someone more than he wants to look at Richie when he fucks him. “Look at you, Rich.”

“I am—”

“Shh, shush,” Eddie silences him. He starts moving his hand again, massaging into Richie inch by inch, feeling the tight heat of Richie relax around him and start to adjust to his presence. He knows Richie’s probably starting to feel good right about now, because this is when Eddie would start to feel good whenever he fingered himself, and he’s proven right when he gets his finger all the way in and just barely brushes against Richie’s prostate.

“Ahh,  _ fuck,”  _ Richie curses, one fist pounding down into the mattress again as the other one shoots up to his hair, tangling in it and tugging. Eddie gets the hint, even if Richie didn’t mean to give it, and he reaches up, too, threading his fingers through Richie’s hair until he can get a good, tight hold.

“I love looking at you,” Eddie tells him, painfully honest. He slips his finger out so he can work his middle finger in beside it, too, knuckle by knuckle. “Richie, I’m looking at you  _ all  _ the time. I look away when you look back so you won’t see me.”

“Why?” Richie asks. Eddie spreads him open, scissoring his two fingers before he brings them together in, pushing all the way in until Richie’s arching under him again.

“Because I was scared,” Eddie says. He drops his head down to kiss over Richie’s heart, murmuring, “I’m not scared anymore, though. You make me brave.”

“You’re brave on your own,” Richie tells him.

“You’re right,” Eddie agrees, crooking his fingers into the bundle of nerves inside Richie, making him whine and squirm, pushing down onto Eddie’s fingers again, desperate for more of him. “But you help, too.”

“Fucking shit,” Richie spits.

“I meant what I said,” Eddie keeps going. “I love looking at you. I love  _ you,  _ Rich, and I can’t stop fucking—  _ thinking  _ about you sometimes, about your fucking  _ shoulders  _ and your hands, your fucking—”

“Eddie,” Richie cuts him off, as Eddie works his third finger in and Richie’s hips twitch up, his cock straining for any kind of friction and finding none. Eddie works him open and apart on his three fingers, taking care to pause now and then to stroke against his prostate, making Richie write back into the mattress.

Eddie cares more about this than he’s cared about anything in recent memory,  _ possibly _ more than anything ever. Richie’s deeply-embedded insecurities are rooted in something, and it’ll take time to dismantle whatever that  _ something  _ is, but Eddie wants to start right fucking  _ now.  _ He wants to show Richie how gorgeous he is, how wanted, how  _ loved,  _ because Richie makes Eddie feel that way and he wants to show him the feeling is  _ incredibly  _ mutual.

“Eds,” Richie manages, as Eddie decides Richie’s ready and slips his hand out of him. He watches Richie’s hole clench and flutter around nothing as Richie lets out a soft moan and says, “Eddie,  _ please.” _

“Can I leave the light on?” Eddie asks, as he tears the condom wrapper open. He slides it on over his dick, so hard that he’s sensitive and boiling hot to the touch, liable to go off in seconds if he doesn’t get it together. He smoothes the condom over his cock, breathing deeply through it, then grips the base of his dick tightly, looking over Richie again as he tries to get it together. “I just—  _ Mm,  _ fuck, sorry, okay, I just—”

“What’re you doing?” Richie asks, sitting up slightly. “Are you— Are you fucking jerking off, Eds, d—”

“No, I’m trying not to cum immediately once I’m inside you, give me a fucking second,” Eddie hisses. Richie laughs, sounding so delighted and carefree that Eddie can’t help but smile, too, even as his cock pulses at the sound of Richie’s laughter and he has to slam his eyes shut, biting back a moan.

“Don’t mind me, I’ll just be waiting here,” Richie comments. Eddie hears a  _ click,  _ and he opens his eyes to see Richie spreading lube over his right hand. His dick throbs as Richie tosses him a fucking  _ grin  _ and says, “If you’re not gonna, then I’ll just—”

“Oh, no, I’m gonna,” Eddie assures him, dragging Richie closer by the hips. He takes the lube from him, closing it and setting it aside. He guides Richie’s lubed hand to his cock, and Richie gets the hint, pushing Eddie’s hand away so he can slick up Eddie’s dick over the condom. Eddie’s harder than he thinks he’s ever been in his life, barely holding himself up over Richie as he strokes over his side and Richie jerks his cock in his slick grip.

“I’m ready if you are,” Richie tells him. He lifts his head, looking at Eddie just through the very top edge of his glasses as they slip down his nose. Eddie leans up with his clean hand and pushes them back up for him.

“Can I leave the light on?” Eddie asks again.

“If leaving the light on turns you on so much you almost came on the spot, then, fine, leave the light on,” Richie allows, acting jokingly magnanimous even as he flushes a darker red, his enormous cock leaking precum onto his belly in wet trails as he tries and fails to catch his breath. Eddie bows his head, kissing over Richie’s heart, biting at his nipple before he lines the head of his cock up with his entrance and pushes in. He means to go slow, but Richie pushes down onto him, and so he ends up moving in one long, slick push  _ in,  _ managing to push into Richie’s prostate and drawing a low noise from deep in Richie’s chest, his eyes slipping shut as his back arched up off the bed.

Eddie bows over him, taking Richie’s hips in his hands and spreading his thighs, nudging one leg up until Richie gets the hint and pulls it up over his shoulder, and then Eddie’s able to fuck into him properly. Each thrust is deliberate, at first, but then Eddie’s quick to lose the rhythm in Richie’s tight heat, wrapped around his cock like velvet even through the condom.

Richie clings to Eddie as he fucks him, so Eddie dips his head to kiss his throat. It makes Richie whine, so he bites there, too, sucking a deep purple mark into his neck until Richie’s gasping, his hips jerking up in a desperate search for friction on his own cock before they shove back down, trying to speed up Eddie’s thrusts.

Richie himself is a boneless mess on the bed, stuck between fucking himself back on Eddie’s cock and trying to get off against Eddie’s belly or his other hand. Eddie fucking loves it, loves making Richie feel so good that he just turns himself over to Eddie like this. Eddie remembers, in a hot, angry flash of memory, Arnie draping himself all over Richie, sitting in his lap and touching his face, the way he’d fucking kissed him in the  _ kitchen  _ when they first met, long and slow and torturous as Eddie could do nothing but watch.

Now, he can do so much  _ more,  _ and he finds Richie’s prostate on the next thrust as he says, “Richie, I need you to— Fuck, I need you to know, I’m so f-fucking in love with you— Oh, fuck,” Eddie manages, then stops, exhaling slowly before he picks up a new, slower pace, trying to just roll his hips, in and out. Richie groans in frustration.

“I love you, too,” Richie tells him, breathless. “I’ll love you more if you just fuck me, please.”

Eddie’s heart  _ thumps,  _ turning over in his chest before speeding up impossibly faster.

“Well,” he says. “Since you asked so nicely.”

Eddie pulls out of Richie, turning him over onto his elbows and knees until Richie gets the hint and shifts until he’s comfortable with his ass up for Eddie to take. Eddie gets up on his knees behind Richie, pushes at him until he’s in a good position for them both; when Richie’s happy with the way he’s situated, Eddie pushes back into him in one fast push.

_ “Motherfucker,”  _ punches out of Richie’s lungs without seemingly any thought at all, and then he groans, digging his face into the pillow under his cheek as his hands fist into the sheets. Eddie gets the hint and fucks into Richie, holding his hips tight, fingers pressing into his belly and his ass as he slams into him on each thrust. Richie sobs, out of words except  _ Eddie _ and  _ fuck  _ and  _ I love you,  _ apparently, and Eddie prides himself on that.

Eddie sees that Richie’s neglected cock is a deep red, now, where it juts out underneath him, too far away from the mattress to get friction there. The head is darkening to purple, Eddie can see as he wraps his hand around it, leaning up and draping himself over Richie to reach. He keeps one hand on Richie’s waist as the other wraps around his cock.

“There you go,” Eddie says, as Richie groans softly at the feel of skin on his dick. He’s so fucking touch-starved, squirming back to get every inch of Eddie’s skin on every inch of his, and Eddie’s more than happy to give it to him. He’s  _ overjoyed.  _ “Alright, th—  _ there,  _ fuck, okay—”

He gets in a good position, loose on his limbs but firm on Richie’s cock as he fucks into him hard, pushing his hips forward so that each thrust in pushes Richie’s dick into the tight circle of his fist. He can fuck Richie  _ and  _ make Richie fuck himself on Eddie’s fist, that way, and it’s the hottest fucking thing in— in maybe the universe, Eddie thinks hysterically, as he fucks Richie hard enough that Richie’s gasping his name or a wordless sound on each thrust.

“I— fucking—” Richie manages, then stops, inhaling and almost whimpering as he says,  _ “Fuck,  _ Eddie, I love you—”

“I love you, too,” Eddie tells him. “I got you. I’m not going anywhere, I’m never gonna leave you again. I promise. I  _ promise,  _ I love you—”

“Fuck,” Richie says, and his hips stutter first, pushing back into Eddie’s out of rhythm as Eddie starts fucking him and jerking him off in earnest. Richie’s back arches, burying his face in the pillow and still shouting Eddie’s name so loudly that Eddie can hear him, clear as fucking  _ crystal,  _ and that pushes him over the edge so that he’s filling the condom inside Richie, wishing he was filling  _ Richie,  _ imagining what it’ll be like someday when he finally gets to, because there will be somedays and more days, endless days to do whatever they want  _ together,  _ and Eddie sobs as he cums so much it starts leaking out of the condom around them both where their skin meets.

“Holy fuck,” Eddie says, barely above a whisper. Once his dick isn’t so sensitive he can’t even twitch without whining, he slips out of Richie’s ass, making Richie keen as his loose asshole clenches around nothing. After he pulls the condom off and neatly disposes of it in Richie’s wastepaper basket beside his bed, Eddie guides Richie down carefully until he’s sprawled backwards across the bed. He smoothes Richie’s sweaty hair back from his forehead, then leans over him, kissing his cheek and his nose before returning to his mouth. Richie’s boneless and barely moves except to kiss back.

Eddie cups Richie’s jaw, deepening the kiss until Richie’s whimpering in his mouth, his overstimulated dick starting to twitch back to life. Eddie pulls back, laughing incredulously at the thought of someone wanting him  _ that  _ fucking badly that they can still be covered in their own cum and still already be getting hard from how much  _ he  _ turns them on. He’s even  _ more  _ blown away that that someone is  _ Richie. _

“Thank you,” Eddie murmurs, kissing Richie again.

“Uhh,” Richie says, then smiles against his lips. Eddie pulls back, and Richie asks, “For getting hard? I wish you’d thank me every time, Eds, I’d get a praise kink out of it.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow, because he’s known Richie’s had a praise kink since he was in high school just from the  _ everything  _ about him, but he lets that slide in favor of saying, “No, doofus, thank you for  _ that,  _ and for— loving me, I guess. Thank you. You’re— You’re right, it is kind of dumb, now that I’m thinking about—”

“No, no!” Richie pulls him in, kissing him again with a dopey grin on his face. It’s almost impossible to kiss properly like that but, after all these fucking years and all the shit they’ve been through, he  _ really  _ doesn’t care. He wants every sort of kiss with Richie that the world’s got to offer. “No, it’s not dumb. Thank  _ you  _ for loving  _ me.” _

Eddie almost makes a joke about it, but Richie looks so genuine and— and vulnerable, too, which Richie very rarely lets himself be. It makes Eddie want to reward him for it, so he smooths his hand over Richie’s cheek and kisses him softly on the forehead.

“You make it easy,” Eddie tells him. Richie snorts, but he doesn’t crack a joke, so Eddie’ll take it.

Eddie kisses Richie one last time, then leaves him in bed to go to the master bathroom and find a washcloth. He wets it with warm water, wringing it out most of the way before he brings it back to clean Richie off. Richie smiles at him lazily, yawning as Eddie scrubs his chest and his belly before taking the washcloth to the hamper. There’s a t-shirt of Richie’s on the floor near the hamper, and something about it being Richie’s shirt that— that smells like him, after he’s just fucked him into his mattress, it just—

There’s not the time to process it properly, so Eddie just acts on instinct, grabbing Richie’s t-shirt and pulling it over his head. It goes past his mid-thighs, the short sleeves falling nearly to his elbows. Richie doesn’t seem him put it on, so he just slips out of his bedroom in it, padding in his bare feet down the hall to the kitchen.

Richie doesn’t have much in the way of groceries, since he hasn’t had time to go on a big trip yet, but he does still have leftover breakfast ingredients from the brunch Bev had hosted for the Losers at Richie’s place a few days before. Eddie manages to make a quick semblance of a meal, since they missed dinner and he’s pretty starved from fucking Richie and feeling a million times more emotions than he typically feels in a day.

He brings the simple breakfast-for-dinner back to Richie’s room, nudging the door open with his hip before he can get in. Richie sits up when he hears the door creak, but he’s rubbing at his eyes with his fists, so Eddie gets to see the moment he sees Eddie’s wearing his clothes. He swallows, his face flushing as he looks Eddie over from his knees up to his face.

“I— I wore that yesterday, it’s not clean,” Richie tells him.

“That’s fine,” Eddie says. Richie’s face goes dangerously red, so Eddie holds up the plates. “I made dinner.”

“I’m obsessed with you,” Richie groans, reaching for him. Eddie feels his own face heat up as he brings the food over and sets Richie’s plate in his outstretched hands. He scoots around to sit beside Richie in the bed, balancing the plate on his knees as he tears into his waffles. The two of them eat in silence, for a couple of minutes, their backs to the headboard as they quietly eat. Then, though, Eddie swallows and glances over at Richie.

“I mean it when I tell you I’m in love with you,” Eddie says. Richie’s face flushes again, so Eddie continues, “I am  _ very  _ fucking serious, Richie, I’ve put a  _ lot  _ of thought into this. I  _ mean  _ it. I want you, okay?  _ You,  _ Richie Tozier.”

“Alright, alright, sheesh,” Richie stops him. He looks down at his plate, then turns to set it aside on his nightstand. After a beat, he says with a shaky voice, “I just don’t— I don’t know what I did to deserve this, I guess? So it doesn’t totally feel real yet.”

“I don’t know how anything we just did doesn’t feel real to you,” Eddie says with a smile, just so Richie will smile, too, and it works; Richie even laughs, just a little, rubbing at the back of his neck. “But I know what you mean. Fuck, I pretty much figured I’d die unhappy with Myra and that’s just what everyone did, but we were all just supposed to keep it to ourselves. I didn’t know I could have something like  _ this,  _ or someone—” Eddie stops, then stretches his legs out, setting his plate down on his thighs as he finishes, “Or someone like  _ you, _ Rich.”

“You’re such a sap,” Richie says tearfully. “Who would’ve thought?”

“Shut up,” Eddie says, but Richie just huffs a wet laugh and scrubs at his cheek with the back of his wrist, dislodging his glasses slightly. Eddie turns, drawing his legs up under him and leaving his plate behind on the mattress as he readjusts Richie’s glasses. He pushes them to their correct place on his nose.

“Thank you,” Richie says softly.

“Anytime,” Eddie tells him. “I mean it. I’ll stay.”

“I could go to New York if you want,” Richie says.

“You  _ just bought—” _

“We’ll figure it out,” Richie says, drawing Eddie in so he can brush their noses together, turning his head and tipping it slightly until their mouths are literally a breath away. “Stay with me, Eddie.”

“Don’t have to ask me twice,” Eddie tells him. He’d had fantasies like this when he was a kid; they were his  _ wildest  _ fantasies, where Richie tugged him in for a kiss, and told Eddie he loved him and would take him away from Derry, and hugged him and said he’d be with him forever, that he’d always be by his side. Funny how the things people want never really change.

“I love you so much, Eddie,” Richie whispers against his mouth. Eddie kisses him once, softly, quickly, before he smiles.

“I love you,” Eddie says again, “and I’m never going to leave you again, Richie. You hear that? I promise you I’m not going anywhere. I’ll finalize my divorce and pack up my shit and we’ll go anywhere you wanna go.”

Richie looks up into his eyes, pulling back a couple of inches so they can actually see each other. He strokes his hand over Eddie’s cheek and says, “I’m already there,” before he kisses him again, dragging Eddie in to deepen the kiss until they’re both smiling again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Richie's OC boyfriend cheats on him with another off-screen OC.

**Author's Note:**

> You can (and should!) come chat with me on Twitter at [@nicolelianesolo](https://twitter.com/nicolelianesolo) and/or on Tumblr at [andillwriteyouatragedy](http://andillwriteyouatragedy.tumblr.com/).


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